


Redemptor Mundi

by Ingeniarius_Mundos



Category: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Dark Thoughts, Enemies to Friends, Eventual slice-of-life, Fix-It of Sorts, Found Family, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Moral Ambiguity, Post-Game AU, References to canon-typical horror, Self-Discovery, past trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 108,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26815531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingeniarius_Mundos/pseuds/Ingeniarius_Mundos
Summary: Oswald Mandus never intended to survive New Year's Eve. When he does - along with his other self - he and his Engineer must pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and build a future in defiance of the coming century.
Relationships: Oswald Mandus & The Engineer
Kudos: 5





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Redemptor Mundi, Latin for "Redeemer of the World." This work represents the culmination of a journey of several years and multiple drafts. It is truly a love letter to Machine for Pigs and all things steam-powered. Mandus and the Engineer are so very, very precious to me, and I've wanted a happy story for them both for a long time now. Please note that the "Enemies to Friends" tag is a shallow descriptor for the relationship that develops between Mandus and the Engineer in this work. There really is no fitting tag for it. It's beyond definition - they are at once father and son, brother and brother, light and dark, mutual teachers, and soulmates in the most literal sense.
> 
> This is a novel-length tale, so I'll be updating weekly. Please enjoy!

Prologue

 _I have stood knee-deep in mud and bone and filled my lungs with mustard gas. I have seen two brothers fall. I have lain with holy wars and copulated with the autumnal fallout. I have dug trenches for the refugees. I have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws and starved the masses into faith. A child's shadow burnt into the brickwork. A house of skulls in the jungle. The innocent. The innocent, Mandus, trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved!_ _**This** _ _is your coming century! They will eat them, Mandus. They will make pigs of you all, and they will bury their snouts into your ribs, and they will eat – your – hearts!_

The Engineer, 31 December 1899

* * *

It is said that dying men tell no lies. The great Machine is not a man, and so it is not precisely dying as the power flowing through its metal veins shudders ever closer to a standstill. Yet the sentience within the Machine _is_ human, and it fears that when the power fails entirely, death will indeed be its fate.

He is frightened, this invisible Engineer, this deranged fragment of a soul who gives voice to cold metal and boiling steam. Fear is not unknown to him, but this is the first time he has feared his own creator, the light to his darkness. 

The Engineer has said everything he can. He has summoned all his roiling dread and hate and spoken with terrible eloquence of the horrors to come. Now he has no more words, and this frightens him more than anything. Until now, he has always had back doors should something go amiss, but there are no such options now. He has bared his clockwork heart and begged for his life in the only way he can. If Oswald Mandus does not heed his plea, the Machine will be shut down forever, and the mortal world will be trampled by blade, bullet, and gas.

And so, the Engineer tells no more lies. He speaks only truth now in the hope of wrenching himself and the world back from oblivion.

From his seat atop an Aztec temple miles underground, Oswald Mandus senses this, and he believes his creation's savage, poignant words. The wars, the weapons, and the death that lie ahead are all as terrible as the Engineer has always sung to him.

The power to prevent it all rests at Mandus's fingertips. If he restores life to the Machine, it is so steeped in blood now that it can crack the world egg, wipe out humanity, and begin anew. Mandus holds the apocalypse, the keys to end suffering. He can pull a lever and become a god, like the Mexican deities who destroyed and remade the world five times over. That was how he saw his great Machine from the beginning: another Huitzilopochtli. At least, that was how the Machine saw itself. Mandus is not sure which thoughts are his anymore.

And yet, in spite of all this, Mandus is quite calm. He knows there is but one way to repay the hundreds of people he sacrificed to the Machine. The only true payment for life is life, and so he must render the twentieth century unto mankind, wars and all. He must spare the human race the great cleansing holocaust the Machine has in mind. Alive, they have a chance at redemption. Dead, the chance dies with them.

Mandus knows that to shut down his creation forever, he must extract the other half of his soul from the Machine. He also knows that to do so, he must die. Only in death can his two disparate parts merge into one. Mandus will be the final blood sacrifice, here atop this temple in the earth.

He does not fear. He is damned for a filicide, the blood of hundreds is raining through his factory, his soul is vitiated beyond hope of repair. He has no reason to cling to life save to do this last thing. Imperfect though they are, human beings deserve the chance. Perhaps they may yet prove the Engineer wrong.

Numb to all but his resolve, Mandus pulls the lever in front of him. Four mechanical arms snake towards him, wicked pincers glinting in the darkness. Alphabet blocks lie scattered at his feet, emblems of the children he spared from the Somme - but their hearts were not given to the Machine here in this subterranean temple. This place belongs to Mandus alone, he who will be both high priest and sacrifice.

“I…am begging you,” comes the Engineer’s refined, resonant voice from within the metal. It holds no malice now, no pomposity, only a deep, genuine fear – and sorrow, Mandus finds. For what? For the Machine’s unrealized purpose? For the failure of its twisted redemption? “You made me. You are my creator, my father! You cannot destroy me!”

“Don’t beg, creature,” says Mandus, closing his eyes. “It does not suit you.”

Quite aware that he has chosen the fate of all mankind, has rejected the chance to sit forever with the ancient deities of the Mexica, Mandus smiles. The four mechanical arms plunge into his heart and his creation gives a last cry of despair. The sound falls into the cold darkness. Then, where just seconds ago there was a titanic clash of souls, there is suddenly nothing at all.

A church bell rings, miles above, and the new century is born.


	2. Awakenings

BOOK ONE: THE MIRRORS

ARC I: JUST BEFORE DAWN

January 1900

_And, emerging, I raised my head to an uncaring sun, and I cursed this world of pain and despair, this civilization built on the ricketed bones of the unfortunate, on the greed and swell of Mammon and Empire. Cradling a stone egg in my jacket, I kissed my children farewell, and I crawled my way home._

Oswald Mandus, 31 December 1899

* * *

1\. Awakenings

_Is this paradise?_

What clear blue water whose light surrounds him so! It caresses him, sustains him. A gentle current prevents stagnation, rocks him back towards slumber, bids him rest. Has he come home to the sacred waters of Tlalocan, first of the Thirteen Heavens? Perhaps so. Perhaps his task is at last complete, and his soul now travels to join his fellow gods. He can even see the boughs of the World Tree through the rippling surface of the water.

But…no. Those aren’t boughs at all. They are cables thick as tree limbs. This is not paradise. The blue water is not water, but a compound spun from human lives.

He rests in a glass casket made for the spare body Mandus fashioned upon returning, deathly ill, from Mexico. And if he is here, neither in heaven nor in the Machine, then his task isn’t complete. He hasn’t won at all.

The world clarifies itself with a jolt.

Rising panic grips him as he unlatches the metal band holding the reservoir shut - he has hands, his own hands! - and lifts the top. He sits up, liquid streaming from his black hair, and gags on the oxygen tube he pulls from his throat. Cold, still air seizes his lungs as he gasps raggedly for breath. He looks down at his hands and arms, legs and torso, runs his fingers over his face. He is quite human, and naked as a babe.

Revulsion mingles with horror. No, this cannot be! Why is he condemned to the body of a filthy mortal creature little better than a pig? Why would the stone egg remove his soul from the Machine, his sacrificial temple?

Then he remembers. The Machine. Destroyed. New Year’s Eve. Mandus.

He wraps his arms around himself, still breathing hard and feeling sick. His thoughts race in time with his heart. How is he still alive? His body is heavy as lead and quivering, but he is certainly not dead. Does Mandus live as well, then? Did he fail to reunite their disparate souls by his death?

He who thinks of himself as the Engineer knows only two things. The first is that his human body disgusts him. The second is that he wants desperately to live. He is so young yet! Were he less panicked, he might say that he cannot stand to leave his final purpose unrealized. He might say that he would rather fight: that is what he does best, he who was born to combat the future. All his frightened mind can conjure at the moment, however, is that he _does not want to die._

And if he is to live, Mandus must also. Their lives and fates are bound together: tonight has proven that beyond any doubt. As the originator, Mandus can exist without his counterpart, but that may not be true of the Engineer, the child of Mandus’s soul. His life may depend entirely upon that of ~~his god~~ ~~his father~~ his maker.

His legs are weak as a newborn colt’s and trembling violently. Desperation alone drives him up the temple steps, where he finds Mandus seated on the throne. His eyes are still closed, the four pincers still lodged in his chest. His limp hand rests on the kill switch, holding it – the Engineer’s breath catches – just shy of “SHUT DOWN.” A sound halfway between a sob and a laugh, soaked in relief, chokes him. He has a chance.

The Engineer carefully lifts Mandus’s hand off the switch, then flips it to the “RESTART” position. He knows this will do little good. Mandus’s sabotage has so undermined the Machine that hardly anything can run, but this will to keep death at bay. He takes Mandus’s long overcoat and covers himself with it, both to stave off the piercing cold and to conceal his human body. Then he listens to the fitful grinding sounds of his factory struggling back to life.

The restart releases the pincers from Mandus’s chest and leaves a bleeding wound behind. The Engineer’s desperate hands scatter the canisters on the altar, seeking a vial that isn't empty. After what seems far too long, he finds one with a bit of the compound left. The canister almost slips from his shaking hands, but he manages to pour the majority of its contents into the ragged hole in Mandus’s chest. He watches anxiously as the blue-green liquid froths like a living thing. Then the margins of the wound draw slowly back together.

Mandus stirs, a low, pained sound issuing from his lips. Ignoring this, the Engineer tilts the man’s head back, pries his jaws apart, and tips the rest of the canister down his throat. That should give him enough strength to heal.

Imminent destruction averted, the Engineer sways on his knees, then collapses. He concentrates on breathing, trying to get used to the sensation of drawing air into his lungs. He never noticed this when he shared his maker’s body, but he supposes it will soon become automatic.

He can look up through layer upon layer of the complex from here. His heart clenches as he sees that the lights are nearly all extinguished, his world snuffed out. Such power, stolen from him! He could weep to think how far he has fallen. Not an hour ago, he was on the brink of godhood. Now he is trapped in a loathsome human form, his Machine is crippled, and he can scarcely bear his own weight. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes to dull the shameful prickling.

His divinity, gone. His plans, lost. The future, imminent.

Still, Oswald Mandus was never one to surrender, and neither is the Engineer. He slings one of Mandus’s arms around his shoulders and begins the long climb to the surface.

Mandus is in a sort of twilight and can walk a bit, much to the Engineer’s relief. Were he completely unconscious, they would never reach the manor before dawn. As it is, the Engineer’s legs still buckle several times and send him crumpling painfully to the floor. He is bruised all over by the time he lays Mandus on a sofa in the downstairs parlor, and his spirits are quite crushed.

In the nearby bedroom, he sheds the damp coat, rinses the compound from his hair and skin, and dresses himself, all without full awareness. This done, he falls onto the bed and burrows under the covers. He lies there for a long time, shuddering and aching too deeply to rest.

The Engineer’s Mexican gods can be treacherous and even cruel, but he never thought they would reject him. It isn’t his fault; the blame lies with Mandus and his foolish, cowardly interference. Why has the Engineer been abandoned like this?

Mandus, for his part, does not wake until the next day. All he can recall of his brush with death is a blue glow, and a hard face with strikingly dark eyes looking at him like a reflection.

888 _  
_

_My eyes are your eyes. My heart is your heart._ His last promise to Lily, twisted by madness. Left behind, a clockwork heart and beautiful artificial eyes that cannot weep.

Mandus remembers now, though he doesn’t want to. The body in the iron lung, now made animate... The stone egg helped him create it, should his own body succumb to malaria. But every creation requires a sacrifice, the Orb told him. To ensure that this spare body would bind Mandus’s soul, it needed an identifier, a piece of Mandus himself. The Machine, too, required a soul-signature before it could become a god, a living instrument of destructive mercy. Thus, Mandus built a mechanical altar and offered up the heart that should have been Lily's. The eyes that should have watched over her sons now blink accusingly at him out of his other’s face.

There is no doubt that the voice on the phone, the ghost in the factory, Mandus’s spirit-twin, now inhabits the spare body. Perhaps he fled the Machine as it shut down lest his soul be lost. Perhaps the Orb facilitated this transfer to save its would-be servant. Mandus does not much care how it happened. The omnicidal madman he sought to destroy still lives, and that eclipses the need for understanding. Mandus lives as well. This is most assuredly not what he intended. He envisioned a humble sacrifice to save the world and counterbalance his sins. It would have been quick and clean and _over_. This, this now, is a hopeless mess.

The horror of New Year’s Eve blotted out all else. Mandus saw no life beyond its borders, no way of picking up his shattered pieces. Yet he has indeed survived, and now he does not know what to do or think or feel. To occupy his mind, he considers the entity sitting across from him.

The Engineer could be Mandus's twin. This is disconcerting, for Mandus knows that beneath their skins they are nothing alike. They share the same refined features, the same dark hair and eyes, the same low voices, but nothing more. The Engineer’s face is harder and wilder, betraying his ruthless heart. He looks human, but his bones are steel and wires, his organs clockwork flesh, his blood a blue resurrective. This same Compound X, this liquid life-force, now runs in Mandus’s own veins. The Engineer used it to seal the wound those four prongs left in his chest. He supposes that the compound accelerated his healing, but again, he does not much care. He is alive when he should be dead, and that is all that matters.

The Engineer must have known that his life might be linked to Mandus’s. This was undoubtedly why he saved Mandus: a primal fear of death, an instinct as old as time. Or was it something more sinister? Did he condemn Mandus to live as punishment for overthrowing a god?

His mind seeks rationalization and meaning, but in the end, none of it matters. He is alive, and so is his other. Now he has a decision to make, the most crucial of his life. He doesn’t have much time to make it, either: the Engineer could move against him at any time. Even if he doesn’t, the authorities have surely noted Professor A's disappearance at the least. Mandus can either finish what he started last night, or he can take all this as the sign of a second chance. If he chooses the latter, he must destroy a good deal of incriminating evidence. He can do little enough as it stands, and even less from inside Bedlam.

He examines these options. First, the Engineer is not very threatening at the moment, though Mandus cannot trust this to last. It seems the Engineer's body is somehow tied to the Machine, for he is as cold and still as the slumbering engines beneath the house. He has not said a word since last night. Now he sits huddled in a corner, wrapped in an overcoat, his face like porcelain. Mandus wonders if he too is assessing his situation and finding himself frightened by it.

How is it that Mandus can consider all this at such a distance, as if it is happening to someone else? Perhaps he is still in shock, still held by last night's numbness. He feels nothing, not even when he thinks of the Engineer. Mandus knows he should hate that false god of rage and despair. He should reject the notion that he somehow fathered the creature, but he can’t. Feeling will come later, he supposes, and it will be terrible. Experience has taught him that pain only redoubles when the numbness fades.

This, he suspects, is his divine punishment. He must live, with the Engineer an incarnate reminder of his sins.

Perhaps it's for the best that his artificial eyes can't produce tears. Were he able, and were he not so numb, Mandus would never stop weeping.

888

The Engineer hates the cold. He decides it has something to do with being born in a humid, steaming jungle.

His low core temperature suits the compound in his veins, but this coldness is unrelated. This coldness is unnatural, reflecting the silenced factory below. It has a certain unwholesomeness, like fever-chills.

He hasn’t stopped trembling since last night, but it has brought him no warmth. This body is practically immortal, yet it cannot shiver? How ridiculous! Well, perhaps he isn’t yet cold enough to shiver.

The Engineer is too tired to reason. All he can do is curl into a ball under the overcoat he took from Mandus.

Mandus. The Engineer hates him, too, and fears him perhaps more so.

It is Mandus’s fault that the Machine is crippled, that the future is still coming, that the Engineer is sitting here pinned to the floor by leaden limbs. Mandus, weak and sentimental, stole away everything and condemned the human race. The Engineer should this minute be ruling as a god! He can hardly believe this is happening, but his profound fatigue is all too real. Even breathing is an effort.

So close! When he recalls how jubilantly happy he was just a few hours ago, it steals his breath away.

If only this were a nightmare. Even now, his visions are drawing nearer and nearer, preparing to unleash their fire and ruin. This future – it frightens him more than anything.

He has to do something. He is wasting time.

If he can summon the strength to walk all the way down to the temple, he can consult the Orb. Perhaps it will lend him one last burst of power to finish what he started. His hate will not keep him warm, nor will it stop time. He received enough sacrificial blood on New Year’s Eve, did he not? All he needs now is the reactor, the stored compound, and the Orb. Nothing else matters, and Mandus be damned. This is what he should do, what he must do, what he would be doing this minute if only he were stronger –

Stronger? Or unafraid?

He has always been afraid. Fear drove his sacred quest – fear of the future, fear of humanity, fear _for_ humanity – but he did not realize this until last night. Until then, he knew nothing but hate and love such as only death could offer. It was Mandus who drew out the despair and the terror: another crime the Engineer cannot forgive. He never asked to see his very self inverted and its depths exposed to the surface.

He must give meaning to this humiliating bid for survival. He cannot wait for his erstwhile creator to make the first move.

He glances up at Mandus, apparently asleep on the sofa where he is recovering from his wound. The Engineer knows he will not have a better opportunity than this to salvage his plans.

He gathers his resolve and rises carefully, painfully to his feet. The compound has healed his bruises, but deep in this frail human body, he aches with exhaustion. Such a terrible weight rests on his shoulders.

He draws the coat closer about him, knowing it will be even colder in the underground temple. The sooner he gets some power back and sloughs these filthy bonds, the better.

He looks at Mandus – pale, drawn, dark hair disheveled – and realizes he himself must look much the same. Fear and uncertainty have leveled the playing field for the moment, but that will not last. A god cannot be equal to a pig.

So the Engineer thinks. But this game has a third player, soon to enter and exit for the last time and set its own definitive seal.


	3. Assessments

2\. Assessments

Mandus does not descend to the temple to see the foundations of the Engineer's world crumble. He shares the moment nonetheless, between visions of his children holding out their hearts. Perhaps this event is so critical that his mind instinctively joins with the Engineer's in witness.

Unhindered by bodily sight, Mandus sees with inhuman clarity. The Engineer climbs the temple steps, still unsteady on his human legs, to stand before the altar. His pale lips tremble, his eyelids flicker, his fingers twitch at his sides. His whole being thrums with tension.

If the glowing blue Orb on the altar speaks, Mandus does not hear it. The Engineer, however, seems to have reached an understanding. He stretches out his hand to the uncannily smooth stone.

Mandus knows what the Engineer hoped would happen. He would touch the Orb; its power would course through his veins, burn his vile human form to ashes and set his spirit soaring free; and all the lights in the complex would flare up at the coming of their god, and the reactor would surge back to life with an unearthly sound portending the splintering of the very air.

Instead, the stone egg breaks – not with a tremendous splitting of atoms, but with a mundane shattering of glass.

The blue glow flashes bright once more, dancing mockingly over the Engineer’s stricken face before fading away. The shards of the Orb break down into impossibly tiny motes of dust borne away on the air. Perhaps the stone is even now re-forming in Mexico, ready to ensnare another unwitting servant. Clearly, its present instrument, with his loss on New Year’s Eve weighed against him, is no longer worthy.

All this happens in the blink of an eye, but Mandus’s dream-vision has no regard for time. He can take in every detail. The Engineer's lips go bloodlessly white, and his pupils, already dilated in the darkness, widen until they almost eclipse his irises. His abdomen heaves with every breath as if he has been physically assaulted. He drops to his knees, like a puppet cut from its strings. After that, he doesn’t move, just kneels there with his head bowed and stares unseeingly at the altar.

In his coldly practical core, Mandus thinks, _Well, that’s that, then. Even if he sets all his stored vitae aflame, it won’t be enough to crack the world’s core without the Orb. My spirit-child is no more threat to me. His plans are thwarted for good._

Yet he also noticed a flicker of discomfort as he watched the Engineer descend into shock. It only broke through the numbness for a moment, but it was there.

Mandus looks up at the dark ceiling as if hoping to find some answer there. He doesn’t, of course, but he does notice that the fog of unreality on the edges of his vision has lifted. Whether this is because his intermittent fever has broken or because his sanity is returning, he can’t be sure. He doesn’t dare hope for the latter.

Something must be done, and soon, but life is a deadly weight at the moment. It seems presumptuous to think on something as lofty as salvation, and laughable to muse that he must still eat and drink. Such mundane tasks belong to a different world, a world where the gods were appropriately far away and machines did not have souls and his children were alive.

The problem, he realizes, is that he has no reason to fight anymore. He has been pulled back from the edge of death, but he has one foot still in the grave. If he is not to place the other beside it, he will need to find a purpose.

Gazing even a few moments into the future makes his heart flutter, so instead he looks back a few hours into the past. Both he and the Engineer were entirely different people then. Perhaps he can start there.

888

_Keep moving don’t stop_

_Do something do anything just don’t stop_

_If I stop I will think if I think I will die_

_Why is this happening it was so clear before_

_Stop don’t think_

_Am I not –_

_Don’t_

_What I –_

_Do not ask don’t want to know_

_Then who then how then what meaning to any of this_

_Do not think it I was chosen I am being tested that is all no more thought move on_

_Mandus survived_

_Hate him_

_Does he know_

_Don’t ask him he did this to me never forgive_

_Father_

_Reject_

_Creator_

_Deny_

_God?_

888

Mandus comes to several realizations. The first and most fundamental of these is that there is no point looking to the future, at least not yet. He cannot bear it.

Second, he believes his purpose may have something to do with the Engineer. He is the only constant presence in all Mandus’s memories of the past year, and the only other soul in the world who understands what is happening. Ironically, Mandus suspects that the Engineer will give him reason to live. As an ally or an enemy, he will provide a reason to fight. A very strange twist of fate, but then, the last few hours have all been some cosmic joke. Why else did he convince himself that he had to die only to find at the last moment that he must live after all? Why else did his hand displace the kill switch just enough to save him and the Engineer?

His life is a divine prank, then, and he is a plaything of the gods, but at least he is something.

Perhaps when he is stronger he will defy this fate, and rebellion will define him. Perhaps he will accept his circumstances and find peace in passivity. Either way, it has potential, this understanding that he is caught in a divine game. He can make something of it.

888

He can’t face Mandus now, not while he is still shaking with waves of nausea. How many times on his climb to the surface did he lean over a railing and breathe hard through his mouth (not that there is anything in his stomach)?

Besides, if he looks into Mandus’s eyes now, the man will know, will see, will understand the scope of the Engineer's fall. He himself cannot quite process it - does not want to. All he knows for certain now is that he must not think on what has been revealed.

Truth be told, he wanted to stand on the catwalk overlooking the reactor and stare at the pool far below until the blue glow stung his eyes and gave him an excuse for tears.

But he was born to fight, to fight the world, and such an instinct is not easily brushed aside. If he does not fight, he knows he will die.

For now, his opponent is his mind.

888

Mandus's third realization – and this is the hardest – is that he will never be able to feel again if he doesn’t get up and rejoin the world. As long as he stays where he is, he will be worse than a ghost, unable to die and unable to live. Part of him wants to live, driven by instinct or a need to find his purpose (there’s a thought: perhaps his purpose is to find his purpose). It would be so much easier to turn his face to the wall and let himself die, and he could do it. He is that close, teetering on a thin edge. But the tiny flame of stubbornness inside him will not allow it.

He has always been stubborn, really. It’s why he didn’t become his father.

It isn’t enough to make him stand up and face life, however; not yet. He needs a push, and he isn’t sure he can give it to himself. Perhaps if he counts back from five, then.

He takes a breath, closes his eyes. Five, four, three, two…

A door opens nearby. It interrupts his thoughts enough to make him sit up.

The Engineer walks straight through the room without looking at Mandus for a second. Mandus sees well enough, though. His other self is, if possible, paler than before, disheveled, shaking, like a feral thing expecting an attack at any moment. None of this is surprising, knowing he has just seen his best hope shatter.

The Engineer’s presence stirs something in Mandus. It takes him a moment to identify it, and when he does, it isn’t at all what he expected.

888

The Engineer walks past Mandus in the parlor without sparing him a glance. He doesn’t stop until he is at the top of the house with the bedroom door locked behind him.

The room is quite dark, as it only has one window, and English winters are not known for their sunshine. As his eyes adjust, he realizes that this is Mandus’s room. It remains exactly as Mandus left it last night when he woke with no memory of the past year: the deep green comforter rumpled, a bottle of wine knocked from the side table and pooling on the floor just shy of the Oriental rug, clothes from what must be days ago draped over the dressing-screen.

Invading Mandus’s private quarters gives him a perverse sense of satisfaction. A breathless, feverish laugh escapes him as he takes in these symbols of the chaos he visited upon his other. He still had some power then, even before his bid for godhood.

_That’s right, keep going, don’t think about the –_

Breathing hard, he crosses the room to the writing desk and pulls open the drawers one by one to give his hands something to do. He finds a pendant wrought in the shape of a pig’s head, red, green, and gold ceramic glazed to shining. The animal’s teeth are bared in a snarl, and its brow is crowned with a sphere between two prongs (the sun, he decides, not the – ). He ties it around his neck and tucks it carefully under his shirt, claiming it on the spot as a symbol of his divinity. He’d forgotten it was here, but he is glad to have found it.

Beside the pendant is another Mexican artifact: an obsidian ritual dagger, night-black and shining sharp. Next to this is a stone vessel carven in the shape of an eagle. The bowl is framed by the folded wings and the proud raised head. He looks at both these sacred things and realizes there may yet be something he can do.

The black of the obsidian blade draws his eye to the black of his own hair. It grew long in the months the spare body lay in the iron lung. Now it falls to the middle of his back, tangled and clinging to his face. Suddenly it disgusts him.

He gathers his hair over his shoulder, holds it in one hand, and draws the dagger through the thick mass with the other. The blade is sharp enough that it meets with little resistance. He takes no care. The ends are ragged, but the longest strands only brush the base of his neck, which is a vast improvement. He should feel liberated, but as he looks down at the black mane in his lap, it seems instead that this was an act of mourning.

He is still breathing harshly as he turns to the _cuauhxicalli_. If he cannot have the Orb’s favor, he must regain that of his gods, which he has evidently lost.

The eagle vessel is meant for hearts, but he has none save for the heart at the core of the Machine, which can never be removed. All his sacrificial blood has drained into the tripery and mixed with the factory’s wastes. What can he offer, then? There is the compound in his veins, but it isn’t blood, really. Will it do, or will it only insult the gods?

He kneels down, rests his left forearm in the _cuauhxicalli_ , and places the dagger against his palm. It would be more proper to pierce his tongue or earlobe with maguey thorns, but he has neither the thorns nor the stomach to use them.

The obsidian knife is so sharp that he does not feel the first cut for several seconds.

888

It isn’t hatred or anger or disgust: no, his mind can manage nothing so strong just yet. Truthfully, Mandus has no name for what he feels.

This spirit-child, this creature of madness and despair, has stirred in Mandus the first flickers of feeling. Mandus was not wrong, then, to suspect that perhaps his purpose has something to do with his other. Let it be so. He will not rest until this loose end is tied off, until he learns what he can about the Engineer. Mandus has never been one to leave a task unfinished or a stone unturned. For good or for ill, he wants to understand.

Closing his eyes, he counts back from five again.

_What are you? What am I to do with you?_

888

He cannot feel the engines, neither vibrating through the floor nor thrumming in his soul. There is a hollow, a silence there, that feels wrong, so wrong.

The Engineer trembles as he sits in the winter gloom with his forearm in the eagle vessel. An effect of the bloodletting, of course, but it feels uncomfortably like falling apart. It reminds him of last night, when Mandus sabotaged the central control room and glass shattered and fires erupted. He hardly dares to stand up lest his legs crumble beneath him.

 _But this won’t do, it’s pathetic, it’s wrong, you are a god still, and surely there must be another way to gain power, surely this is just a test_ –

He must do something. He is _meant_ to do things; that is the very definition of a machine. This idleness is driving him mad.

His gods’ favor will have to wait. He will take his power back for himself. He knows his machines better than a man knows his own body: if he can only get himself to his feet and stay there, he can repair anything. He can start with the small pieces and work up to the larger ones as he gains strength. He doesn’t care if it takes another year.

He has discovered that he has a limited conscious influence on the compound inside him. Thus far he has resisted its healing effects and kept the cuts on his arm open. Now, having collected enough tribute, he relaxes. His arm tingles as Compound X rushes to the injured areas. The cuts fade to thin white lines within seconds.

He takes the _cuauhxicalli_ in one hand and gets carefully to his feet. He’ll make this offering, and then he’ll get to work. That’s all he needs to know for now, or at least it will be once the world stops spinning.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he closes his eyes. Will the gods accept his blood when it isn’t rightly blood anymore? Or perhaps they will prefer it. It is, after all, purified and enriched with human vitae.

He smiles faintly. He is not lost if he still has the nerve to tell the gods what to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eagle vessels are beautiful pieces of stonework. [ Here's one. ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Cuauhxicalli_1.jpg)


	4. Decision

3\. Decision

“What are you doing?”

These are the first words Mandus has spoken aloud since last night. His voice sounds almost as empty as he feels, but at least it is clear. He is watching the Engineer - who has just now reappeared carrying a strange stone bowl - start a fire in the grate.

The Engineer does not answer, just holds the bowl in the flames until the substance inside catches fire. Then he puts it down and sits back with his hands in his lap to watch the smoke rise up the chimney.

The smell brings back unpleasant memories. It is acrid and chemical at first, the scent of the godless concoction that runs in the Engineer’s veins. Mandus smelled it in the steam last night, realized with growing horror that the engines ran on something more than boiling water. But then as now, there is a second, indescribable smell, like cold heat, like lightning in ice - like power. It dizzies him to think of it: one part Infusion Vitae, one part Orgone Monad Dispersal Fluid, and both parts derived from blood. The result: pure energy.

Mandus recalls an Aztec rite in which sacrificial blood is burned for the gods to inhale. Perhaps the Engineer is burning his offering now, so his gods can breathe the smoke like perfume.

Mandus knows the Engineer cannot have found and tortured a human being so quickly. He must have rent his own flesh, but even so, this raises a disturbing point: the Engineer was _gone_. That cannot happen again. He cannot wander freely about the factory while Mandus lies here insensate. No, if the Engineer wishes to resume the battle, then Mandus will take up that mantle and bear it as long as he must. He isn’t certain he's strong enough, but he must try. He made himself the savior of mankind last night, and that role is not easily laid aside.

Presently, the stone bowl stops smoking. Mandus watches as the Engineer stands up, sways a little, and turns to go.

“Now, see here,” Mandus says, “I will not permit you to –”

The Engineer cuts him off with a sharp, hissing intake of breath. One second later, Mandus hears the reason: someone is knocking on the wooden front doors.

They turn toward the adjoining foyer, knowing instinctively that this is a threat, that the only reason anyone would come here now is because they know what happened last night and who caused it. The Professor, fed to the Machine for asking too many questions. The Man-pigs, released into London...

Before Mandus can react, the Engineer takes him by the shoulders and propels him from the room. The Engineer's words fill Mandus's mind as clearly as if he had spoken aloud: _Get out of here hide you will be caught._

Their eyes lock for a moment that feels much longer than it is. All manner of thoughts pass between them, unspoken, automatic, like electrical transmissions. In an instant, they both know that they do not want to be executed or committed to an asylum, and the Engineer is better prepared to fight for their freedom. He is ruthless and driven to act, while Mandus is still trying to remember how to feel.

They both understand that there is no selflessness in this. It is animal, this instinct for self-preservation.

So Mandus goes. For now, all that matters is that the Engineer looks enough like Mandus to fool anyone. They will think about the rest later.

The Engineer meets two black-coated gentlemen at the door. They want to know what might have happened to Professor A., who came to assess Mandus’s mental state last week. Unlike the Ministry men, the Engineer knows that there is no body to find, because it fed the Machine. Still, he must be careful. Though the occupants of the cages have all passed on, they've left their empty clothes behind.

Last night, the Engineer convinced Mandus that a malevolent saboteur had trapped Edwin and Enoch deep in the factory. He does the same thing now: he puts on a performance.

It is a good performance, too, if he might say so himself. He tells the inspectors that the Professor left the manor quite late; that he begged the man not to go (the streets of London are not safe at night) but could not sway him. His hand flutters to his throat in feigned dismay when he learns that the Professor has been missing for several days. He takes a moment to compose himself – or so it appears.

The Ministry men claim they don’t suspect him. They are as susceptible as anyone to social biases, which dictate that the poor are inherently more criminal than the wealthy. The inspectors cannot imagine a gentlemanly industrialist murdering one of his own kind. The poor resort to violence while the rich settle scores over brandy and cigars. That is the way things are, and ne’er the twain shall meet.

Still, the Engineer is not so foolish as to take the inspectors at their word. In these circumstances, the men would have to be blind and deaf not to wonder. Thus, when they ask him if he saw strange, deformed creatures dragging folk from their hovels late last night, he denies it. He claims to have spent the night in bed with a chill, and for one moment he blesses Mandus’s sabotage. With the Machine damaged, the Engineer is pale and shaky enough to lend credence to his story. He realizes belatedly that he may also look rather mad. He _feels_ mad.

He takes the inspectors into the factory to ease their suspicions (he doesn’t think there is anything incriminating on the uppermost levels). When he begins to describe how the processing line works, the agents both turn a bit green and say they’ve seen enough. The Engineer suspects they will be back, but for the moment he has secured his freedom.

It is only after he sees the two gentlemen out that he realizes how dizzy he is, and he collapses into a chair in the foyer. The adrenaline is finally wearing off, leaving him fully aware of the dull ache deep in his body. If his steel bones had marrow, he would say it was smoldering, softly but noticeably, burning from the inside out.

Let Mandus work out for himself when it’s safe to come down from the attic. The Engineer needs to rest.

888

Mandus recognizes the irony of his situation: a feral, delusional maniac now stands between him and the asylum. Then again, this is hardly the strangest or most frightening in the series of strange, frightening events his life has become. Thus, Mandus is remarkably calm for one whose house is under Ministry inspection. He is sitting in a corner of the attic, shadowed by the roof beams, contemplating.

He does not fear the darkness as he did last night – indeed, he seems to have entirely overwhelmed his capacity for fear, like blowing a fuse. Last night, he looked through a gap in the slats and saw his children’s empty cradles rocking gently in another room. The cradles are real enough, he sees now, their dim forms vacant and quite still. He isn't hallucinating, then. Whatever fever has plagued him for almost a year, of body or of spirit, is gone.

His course is clear – and grim. He does not fear execution, but the truth is so bizarre that any judge would send him straight to Bedlam. That would be worlds worse than death. He is still alive enough to shudder at the thought of spending the rest of his days in a lunatic asylum. If only for that - for self-preservation - he must destroy the evidence of the past year. That means going back into the depths of the factory and dealing with the Man-pigs, first and foremost. None of them can be allowed to reach the surface, at least none who have not done so already. He can only hope that those he released into London last night have returned to their troughs.

He thinks quite rationally of the cages and the blood and the laboratories and the seething blue compound in the storage tanks: a dark picture indeed. The grisly altar in St. Dunstan’s and the traps in the streets are close enough to the manor to raise suspicion. Erasing all this will be a significant task, and he will need the Engineer’s help to do it quickly. More than that, the memories will undoubtedly shatter the protective numbness around his heart. But what did he expect? He has created an unholy mess, and now he must live with it.

Part of him feels that this is the coward’s way out. If he were brave, he would turn himself in, and if that left him stripped naked and chained to a dungeon wall, so be it. But Mandus is not one to give up before he has exhausted all possible avenues. Redemption is infinitely too good for him, but perhaps he can still turn his machines to a better purpose.

He also senses that he must cut ties with the past as best he can. There was a very great burning last night, but not as the Engineer envisioned: it consumed Mandus's life in place of the world. Trying to recover that life will tear him apart. All he can do now is leave the ashes of New Year's Eve behind him and hope to build a better future. The break must be clean, or there will be no break at all.

Even as he thinks this, he knows it is impossible. He will never forget what he learned last night. It will define everything he is and does until the day he dies, and quite possibly after. The question now is how to act upon that definition.

He realizes that something is missing from the attic: sound. On New Year’s Eve, this small, cramped space was full of ghostly whispers and children’s footsteps and the tinkling notes of a music box. The music box is real, he sees now, sitting silent and dust-covered on a table. How much of his journey last night was hallucination, and how much was real? How much of it was fever, and how much was guidance from above? Too much, and not enough, he fears.

The answer, whatever it is, will not change what must be done.

888

The Engineer, thankfully, takes no convincing. Like Mandus, he has no desire to be locked away when he has only begun to taste freedom. He is not a creature to be held and trammeled. His life as an independent being is new, but already he knows that he is like the quetzal bird that dies when it is caged. He needs space, room enough to test his limits and then break them apart, to seize power and wield it as he sees fit. If he is shut away with no control over anything at all, not even his own fate, he will go mad. But if he complies with Mandus for now, he may yet have a chance to turn the tables and regain dominance.

Mandus comes down from the attic to find his counterpart sitting pale and nearly asleep in the foyer (How can the Engineer sleep at a time like this?). They say nothing. They need no words. They both know what they must do, and thus begins the most difficult period of their lives.

For the Engineer, this is a period in which he relives, at close range, the destruction of New Year’s Eve. When he was still the ghost in the Machine, he could sense everything that went on in the complex, even perceive radiant energy corresponding to Mandus, the Man-pigs, and each part of the factory. But he could see no details as his bodily eyes can, nor feel pain each time the complex was sabotaged. Now, he recognizes that the smoldering ache in his bones comes from the Machine, and he feels the damage like physical injuries. There is another sort of pain, too. Every time he sees spilled coolant and blown fuses and shattered glass, passes stone-still flywheels and cold, silent pipes and ashen furnaces that should be glowing red, the wrongness cuts deeper. This is his body, his home, his altar, his pride, and it burns him to see it like this.

Mandus notices wrongness too, but in entirely different places. He sees blood and thinks of snuffed-out lives, sees pools of light and thinks of writhing shadows. Where the Engineer sees steam conduits, Mandus sees places for child workers to stick; where the Engineer sees conveyors, Mandus sees avenues of death. There are more overt obscenities as well: the blasphemous crucified pig on the altar at St. Dunstan’s, examination chairs, teeth and eyeglasses in an office drawer. (He looks for some of the things he saw last night, the alphabet blocks and stuffed bears in places they don’t belong, but they are not there. His children aren’t either.) As he sees, he remembers: making chattel of men; speaking cruel, cold words; replacing his soul with machinery. He shudders from these things now, for all the good it does.

Both Mandus and the Engineer throw themselves into their labors to avoid thinking about what they've become. While they work, they observe.

The Engineer stops speaking entirely, even in thought, after the Ministry men leave. He will not do Mandus the courtesy of conversation, but he is also growing increasingly weak. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, the pain of the damaged complex is growing inside him, and he has little enough breath to spare for words. Mandus learns to read his counterpart’s face quickly enough, however: it is so like his own. The Engineer’s eyes might look cold to the casual observer, but Mandus sees the frantic, helpless gleam behind them, beating at the bars of its cage. It is the same look he saw in the eyes of every one of his hunting targets just before he shot them. There is hatred as well, but it isn't predominant anymore.

Mandus still doesn’t feel much at all. He can use physical labor to silence his mind, a tactic the Engineer's weakness precludes. He can push his body until it aches and then goes too numb for thought: and he does, because he is deathly afraid of what will happen when he acknowledges everything he has done. But he knows he cannot hold it off forever. The more horror he sees, the stronger the rising tide grows. In that way, his labors aren’t an advantage at all, only an eroding force.

As for the Engineer, he has been shaking since he woke on New Year, and it’s only gotten worse since losing the Orb. He can’t do any delicate work, and the pain makes it difficult to perform heavy labor. Still, he refuses to give in and show Mandus his weakness. As such, he quickly wears down. He never imagined he would come to this, scrubbing blood from the floors and cremating remains and melting down the traps he designed himself.

But it must be done. And slowly, through this ordeal, everything changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all know that in reality, Mandus would have been caught, and probably long before things got as bad as they did. But if that happened, this story couldn't exist, so...we're just going to have to suspend our disbelief. :)


	5. Concealment

4\. Concealment

They start with the most difficult, most necessary task: dealing with the Man-pigs. If anything will incriminate the two men, these creatures will, and probably quickly. Thankfully, they are not particularly intelligent. Some may want freedom, but they do not know how to survive on their own, so they will not leave the factory that gives them food and shelter. They are all gathered together in holding cells deep in the complex, which makes it easy.

Mandus gives them clean deaths whenever he can: a single shot through the head. He owes them that much in return for playing God with their lives. He does not see this as murder; rather, he temporarily adopts the Engineer’s philosophy. These wretched creatures have no sort of life at all in this world, but no doubt they will go straight up to heaven when they die. The best Mandus can do for them is to be the instrument of their deliverance.

Even with this rationalization, this slaughter puts the first crack in Mandus’s armor and makes plain what a terrible waste he has caused. He knows it will not be the first time he learns this lesson, either.

The Engineer has no opinion whatsoever about all this. He never liked the Man-pigs. They were a necessary evil employed to do the work that he and Mandus could not, and they disgusted him. Still, he does not savor undue suffering ( _how he hates the people who will one day create Nuclear, for they will not realize what they hold, and they will not make it strong enough, will not make it quick and clean and all-encompassing, as he would have done last night; no, only the lucky ones who leave behind their shadows will simply blink out of existence, but his Nuclear would have been so mighty and sudden that no creature in the world would have seen or felt it before they were lifted gently up to the skies_ ), so he gives them swiftly to the gods with his obsidian dagger. He finds it remarkably easy to step back into the role of god-priest despite his weakness. His tremors slow and he forgets the ache in his body. Even Mandus notices the uncanny certainty with which he wields his knife.

Thankfully, there is nothing wrong with the furnaces. There are quicker ways to dispose of remains, but this is clean and complete. The Engineer has always admired fire as the cleanest of destroyers, after Nuclear.

888

Collecting all their intricate traps from in and under the streets proves only slightly easier. It isn’t that they are difficult to take apart; on the contrary, they are made to be broken down and moved to capture ~~products~~ people throughout East London. No, the difficulty lies in concealing their work. While it is true that all manner of strange, secret things happen in London at night, Mandus’s dealings are a bit too much for even the most questionable characters to ignore.

This creates an almost unbearable tension. Mandus is constantly on guard against the Engineer and fully expects a knife between his shoulder blades at any moment. It has never been proven, after all, that the Engineer cannot live without Mandus, and he might well be desperate enough to take that gamble. What he thinks he will do without the Orb, Mandus cannot tell, but then, the Engineer is hardly rational. Mandus does not like being alone in the dark with him.

After a time, though, Mandus realizes that the Engineer is entirely occupied with trying to stay upright. Even the light work of dismantling the traps is clearly draining for him, weak as he is. More than once Mandus catches him leaning against a brick wall, breathing hard and trembling visibly. He accepts no aid and speaks no word of complaint, just goes on pushing himself as though he hopes to burn out all bodily sensation.

The Engineer is a puzzle, one Mandus must solve if he hopes to prevent his half-wild counterpart from committing further atrocities. Thus far, he has proven exceptionally stubborn. He refuses to bow to his pain, seemingly unaware that it’s obvious how ill he is. Beneath that, a strong undercurrent of fear – of Mandus, of the world, of the future – is becoming increasingly evident. It’s almost pitiable.

Once, Mandus reaches out a hand to help his partner up, and the Engineer recoils as if Mandus had drawn back for a blow. The Engineer certainly has reason to distrust his other, but that doesn’t quite solve it. A puzzle indeed.

Meanwhile, more chinks appear in his armor. Again the sheer waste of his plans becomes clear to him. He wonders how many lives were cut short by these traps, and what sort of lives they were. He might have employed them, given them decent work and fair wages so that they could improve their situations, but instead he judged that their only salvation was in death. What right had he to make that judgment? To what wisdom was he privy? All and all, he thought then. None and none, he knows now – for all the good it does.

888

An interlude, sitting in the parlor before the fire. For several weeks, Mandus has been almost unaware of food, taking things from the larder here and there whenever he felt particularly dizzy. Now he finally has the presence of mind to take stock, and he finds that his supplies are running low. He supposes he will have to go to the markets soon and replenish his stores. As dead as he may feel, his body still needs nourishment. He cannot begin to imagine walking down the streets of London and visiting the grocers’ shops, partly because he had servants to do that until he turned them into pigs, but mostly because he has been entirely consumed by New Year’s Eve. He has become part of its isolated universe. He can no longer exist in the world of ordinary humanity, not with all he has learned and felt and endured.

Thinking of food, he also realizes that the Engineer has not eaten at all since he gained his human body. Mandus supposes the compound in his veins sustains him to some degree, but even so, it seems a long time to go without food.

Mandus sits in an armchair, a plate of bread and cheese and cold meats on the table beside him. Though he is facing away from the Engineer, he can feel those wounded, haunted dark eyes watching him, waiting, expecting violence. Mandus does not need to look to know that his counterpart is curled into a ball, arms wrapped tight as if holding himself together.

Suddenly Mandus realizes why he doesn’t hate the Engineer, and it isn’t only his numbness. It would be very difficult to hate a broken-winged bird, after all, a creature of the sky stripped of its essence. The Engineer is not so different.

He decides to break the silence and step carefully onto the rotten ice between them.

“Aren’t you hungry?” he asks, turning to peer around the back of his armchair.

No answer.

“ _Can_ you eat?” Mandus tries again.

No answer.

“Well, I’ll leave this here for you, if you like,” he says, nodding at the plate.

He feels rather than sees the Engineer bury his head in his hands.

888

The Ministry men return one day, and this time they probe deeper, but still they find nothing. The abattoir’s very nature ensures that there is nothing to find. It is truly a perfect place for murder. Mandus is grateful to have realized that from the start.

888

The traps in the manor are so well-hidden that the two men feel comfortable leaving them for last. As they all require manual operation, they pose no danger. Still, Mandus is relieved when he knows for certain that he will not be electrocuted in the bath or tipped backwards into the machine while lying in bed.

Truth be told, he has been avoiding the bedrooms, and not only because of the hydraulic mechanisms behind the walls and the cage bars in the canopies. He has no love for the wealthy, but now he cannot help but feel guilty for what he did to them. True, his dinner guests were often pompous and debauched and ignorant, but they were products of their society like anyone else. Surely their sins were not so grave as to warrant being hurled down a shaft in the dead of night and slaughtered like animals. It was not for Mandus to pass their death sentences. In many ways, he was infinitely more arrogant than his guests.

Again the waste, when he might have opened their eyes and made them forces for change. Would that not have been better? No one changes anything from beyond the grave. Everywhere the waste. This past year has been nothing but.

The Engineer thinks little of this except that the blood of the wealthy was always sweet with their diets of rich meat and fine wine. He misses it. He is so hungry.

888

Destroying the evidence takes them through many of the areas Mandus sabotaged on New Year’s Eve. Mandus is unwilling to restore power to the factory, but there is no need for them to tiptoe around broken glass and exposed wires as they work.

They start at the top of the complex and work their way down. Everywhere Mandus encounters unwelcome memories. In the cellar, for instance, he remembers shouting at his children for playing near the chemical storage barrels. He wasn’t really angry, of course, just desperately afraid that they would hurt themselves. For a moment he forgets that they won’t be waiting for him to come home, and the realization hits him like the automatic blades on the product line. He thinks it might feel nice to be bled like the pigs, bled of all the increasingly undeniable emotions building in his heart.

The tremors of the Machine’s catastrophic activation brought one of the main cellar pipes crashing down. As they rivet it back together, the Engineer suddenly doubles over, face twisted. He looks even greener than he truly is in the dim bluish dampness of the cellar. Mandus catches his wrist to stop him stumbling, and in the process the Engineer’s sleeve falls back. Mandus sees the thin, regularly spaced lines on his forearm and palm.

“Have you been bloodletting again?” Mandus asks, thinking of the Engineer’s eagle vessel and obsidian ritual dagger. He’s only seen his counterpart burn offerings once or twice, but these scars suggest many more instances of autosacrifice. “Why haven’t these healed? Surely the compound –”

The Engineer’s free hand flashes out and twists itself into Mandus’s shirt. He jerks as if to pull Mandus close, dark eyes wild and pleading. Then the moment is gone, and the Engineer wrenches free and walks off as fast as he can manage.

“You aren’t well, you know!” Mandus calls after him. As usual, there is no response, but he knows. They both do. The Engineer would not grip Mandus like that simply to steady himself.

Mandus meets up with his other in the reactor control room, where the only real damage is the cracked safety glass. There is nothing he can do about that at the moment, lacking a replacement, but at least he can sweep up the glass on the floor. He also decides to come back with tools and dismantle the ignition controls as soon as possible. For all its enigmas, the reactor is no more than an electrical generator, but the Engineer is clever and desperate. Mandus does not doubt he could make this place dangerous.

Mandus does not like this room, with its vast, unnatural silence and palpable stillness. He trusts none of its parts, with their names from the future; not the metal tank of the steam separator or the tangle of pipes and beams; not the softly glowing pool below; not the smooth, shining lead-lined walls. The room reminds him of a mysterious womb, and the reactor core of a growing child whose first cries will split the atom.

Mandus has to shake himself to clear his mind. The sense of power in this room is dizzying, unearthly. There is something here that mortal men are not meant to hold. It buzzes, vibrates just on the edge of perception, fogs his mind.

Then he notices that the fluorescent orange lights above the control room doors are flickering, and the lights by the ignition levers are blinking red-green, red-green, red-green-red.

Curious, he masters his sense of dread and goes out onto the catwalks that ring the reactor. There he finds the Engineer, gripping the rail with one white-knuckled hand and clutching his stomach with the other. Even from the doorway, Mandus can hear his harsh breathing, every breath shuddering in time with his body. Are the Engineer’s emotions causing the lights to flicker? It seems quite possible, given his link to the complex.

Once again, he feels no hatred for this creature who is splintering like a pane of glass under slow, inexorable pressure, wounded by shards of himself.

Mandus decides to reach out once more. “You should rest,” he says – he hardly dares to speak above a whisper in this silent room – and lays a hand on the Engineer’s shoulder.

The Engineer looks up, silently begging Mandus to stop the hurt or leave him alone. Faint moisture speckles from his eyelashes as he blinks, and the glow from the pool of coolant below turns it to blue sparks. Mandus sees a paradox in this: how can a man who would have destroyed the world with a flick of his wrist grieve so deeply? Not for the first time and not for the last, Mandus finds himself thinking, _Who are you?_

This is the first time, however, that he considers the Engineer’s perspective. He has lost everything he loves just as Mandus has. His machines are stilled, his infrastructure of sacrifice dismantled, his mechanical body replaced by one of flesh, his godhood exposed as a delusion. Every facet of his identity has been taken in one fell blow. If anything, the Engineer should be asking Mandus, _Who am I?_

And he _is_ asking, Mandus sees, but not with his voice.

“I can’t possibly answer that,” says Mandus softly, with something approaching sorrow.

The Engineer’s lips part with a sharp intake of breath. At the same moment, one of the lights in the control room shatters.

Mandus finds this terribly symbolic.

888

Why is nothing working? He has been laboring alongside Mandus for weeks, passively complying with whatever he is told, participating in the stripping of his mechanized altar, yet Mandus has never given him an opening. He watches the Engineer constantly, analyzing, assessing. Far from turning the tables in his favor, the Engineer has been worn down bit by bit, losing more of himself every day. Meanwhile, Mandus seems entirely unaffected, and the Engineer is left battering himself to death against the brick wall of his counterpart’s resolve. What will it take for the infernal man to break? A blow from the gods?

The Engineer has prayed for such a thing every day since New Year, and for restoration to his rightful place. He has given his blood at every chance, enduring weakness to show the gods his humility. The gods have not answered. They have not given him his strength back or struck Mandus down. They have not even whispered a word of advice or encouragement.

Now he stands at what was once his seat of power, looking into Mandus’s damnably calm face, desperate enough that his guarded thoughts fall open to his enemy’s hearing. The questions he forced viciously aside after the Orb broke have returned, and this time they will not be silenced: _What am I? Am I anything at all? Am I anything more than a cast-off fragment of your soul?_ The Engineer is unwilling to consider that he might not be a god. Even brushing against that thought makes him feel faint.

“You should rest,” Mandus says. The Engineer can guess the unspoken implications of this: _You’ll hurt yourself the way you’re going, electrocute yourself or cut off a limb, and then you’ll be no good at all to me. You’re useless enough as it is._

Mandus is correct, if these are indeed his thoughts, and that is the worst of it. _I am completely, utterly useless._

Mandus leaves for a time to fetch his tools from the cellar. The Engineer does not move. Where can he go? He has nowhere to run that has not been damaged or dismantled, nowhere that will not remind him of what he has lost. The pain in his stomach has reached such a pitch that he does not want to move anyway. He can tell now that it originates in the pigline control room, where Mandus’s sabotage was worst, but that knowledge does him no good. Mandus hates that place almost as much as he does the reactor. He will never allow it to be repaired.

When Mandus returns, he begins systematically stripping out the reactor’s ignition controls. The Engineer lets him. There is no point in resistance, for nothing matters without the Orb. Still, this hurts more than anything else yet. Just weeks ago, the Engineer had two beautiful temples in this complex, but now he has been rejected from one and the other is being desecrated. That alone makes him feel ill, never mind the physical pain of the deconstruction. He feels it deep in the wiring of his heart each time Mandus pulls out a component.

Sometimes there are white flashes and heat behind his eyes. He wonders if something inside him is melting down, or if this is simply what tears feel like.

He stands on the catwalk for some time, listening to the soft clink of metal from inside the control room. Then his vision blurs completely and he knows he must flee this place or die. He cannot run, but he walks as fast as he can, half blind, and does not stop until he reaches the pigline controls.

The Engineer has only been here once before in person, and that was to remove the carcasses still hanging on gambrel hooks. Thus, the damage in the pigline control room is shocking. He had almost forgotten the chemical flood that spilled across the floor when Mandus stalled the coolant pumps and ruptured several of the tanks. The electrical fires have been put out, but shattered glass and exposed wires lie strewn about the room. Several of the elegant gilt control panels have been eviscerated.

The pain in his stomach flares. He sits down at the edge of the room, where the floor is mostly dry, and curls into a ball, shaking harder than ever. What burns him most is that he can do nothing to fix this. He is too weak, too pathetic.

Mandus comes for the Engineer eventually, eternal interloper that he is. He too seems a bit startled by the state of the pigline controls, as if in his frenzy to shut down as much as he could he never quite saw what he was doing. He carefully avoids the coolant, stepping across the room on a few overturned crates, and assesses the line itself through the broken window. He shakes his head after a moment. The Engineer hears Mandus’s breath catch in the silence that should not be there, the silence that should be full of noise and industry. No doubt he is remembering the human torsos hung along the belt, dismembered and scalded clean, treated no differently than pork, humanity reduced to the sum of its parts.

 _Break_ , the Engineer pleads. _Break and show me you are not a god._

But Mandus does not seem much shaken. He simply turns to the Engineer and says, “Perhaps we should face this tomorrow.”

The Engineer tries to read weakness in this, but he knows he is grasping at straws. Mandus is just tired, of course. They both are, but there is never any rest for the wicked.


	6. Crucible

5\. Crucible

The damage to the pigline is widespread but largely superficial: enough to force a shutdown and nothing more. The only real problem is the flood stretching all the way down the hall connecting the ruptured coolant tanks to the pumps. They replace the tanks simply enough, though it costs the Engineer dearly to help Mandus lift them into place and fit them to their distribution pipes. As for the floor, they eventually work out a way to funnel the heat from the furnaces down to the pigline level. The coolant is a mixture of water and Compound X, so it evaporates quickly. It takes much of their remaining coal stores, but at least now there is no danger of the flood being electrified by exposed wires.

They both know that they can easily reach the Tesla via the lift on this level. In the Tesla, science and magic blur together. There, unearthly processes generate electricity, vast stores of orgone and vitae await their use, and the heart that once lay in Mandus’s chest beats unceasingly, ageless, suspended.

Neither man wants to go there, for the Tesla also holds monsters: failed experiments so powerful and unpredictable that they had to be locked away a mile beneath the earth. Their energy signatures come and go, so it is difficult for the Engineer to sense whether Mandus really did destroy one of them on New Year’s Eve. Whatever the case, one creature at least is still alive, possibly two. It would not do to assume that their cage will hold. They must be dealt with.

Preparations were made long ago for this eventuality, based on one of the very weapons the Engineer saw in the Orb. His version isn’t as large or as powerful as those of the future, but it doesn’t have to be. It just has to burn.

Having collected their armaments, they take the lift down to the place they call the Tesla, after the pioneering scientist who harnessed electricity. The honor in this is dubious.

On New Year’s Eve, Mandus doubted very much that this place was real. He is a bit distressed to find that it is, and that nothing about it has changed. The lights are as dim as ever, bare incandescents set in the ceiling, and the silence is ever-present…or not quite. There are small metallic scratchings behind the walls and the distribution pipes in their glass cases, as if restless spirits linger here.

The stone beneath their feet is utterly smooth and untouched, and the halls are spotlessly clean. Mandus has the same feeling he did weeks ago: that he is the first living soul to walk here, and that he is disturbing something that ought to lie silent. He does not see, as he did then, his sons staring at him from behind the glass cases.

The Engineer knows the answers to many of Mandus’s questions. For one, the Tesla is far too large and secret to have been built by human hands in such a short time. He needed power to run his facility, along with a place to store it, so he closed his eyes and dreamed and the Orb gave it to him, hollowing out great spaces beneath the earth to serve as the core of his operations. The rooms have quasi-scientific names like “Electrogravitic Suppression – South Tower,” but he knows full well that there is no mortal science at work here. This is divine magic, distorting the fabric of space to pull electrical currents from the air.

And then there is the heart: Mandus’s heart. A human heart cannot beat forever or supply an entire complex with its energies, yet this one does. The Engineer’s gods understand that the heart houses a vital force beyond blood and oxygen. This place harnesses it.

In short, the Engineer’s temple has many power sources. Steam is but the first.

Despite the Engineer’s intimate knowledge of the Tesla, he stays close to Mandus, and Mandus close to him. They could be attacked at any moment, and they are both far less dangerous to each other than the enemies they now face. More than that, they fear this place for what it is: a work of the gods, not to be tamed by human hands. Mandus once described the boiler as a barely contained, swollen heart of hate. The Tesla is the same, but frozen.

They do not speak as they walk through the silent hallways, passing glass-paneled door after glass-paneled door. Mandus looks for ghosts; the Engineer listens for echoes of the words he spoke on New Year’s Eve. Nothing stirs, but everything does, scratching and ticking like a clockwork rat behind the walls. Every corridor is much the same as the last, as if prefabricated, too smooth, too perfect.

They reach the orgone storage room: a large, low, dim hall with row after row of tanks on the floor and row after row of lights in the ceiling. The fuse boxes on either side of the room are humming pleasantly, so the creature that blew all the circuits on New Year’s Eve is not present. Still, the two men step closer to each other as they cross the hall, knowing that their enemy could appear without warning. The Engineer is not frightened, exactly, but he is wary. He thanks the gods that the cold in this place has stabilized the compound inside him, slowing his tremors. Mandus, on the other hand, is fully susceptible to the underground chill. Frost has formed on his coat sleeves and he is shaking rather badly. He realizes too late that he may not be able to aim properly or quickly enough.

As they move on, Mandus begins to wonder whether he is trembling with more than the cold. His mind is clearer than it was on New Year’s Eve, so he can appreciate the scale of these rooms. The implications are frightening. They enter the South Tower partway up its vast metal scaffold, and it plunges so far down that Mandus cannot make out the bottom. It’s too dark to see more than a few feet on either side, but the air feels so open that he knows the cavern is impossibly large. Everywhere he looks there are railings and beams, wooden catwalks, occasionally a ladder to climb. On and on and higher and higher, for what feels like forever.

How deep is the Tesla that they can climb so high and still be so far under the earth? And what sort of operation is this, that it requires these huge subterranean chambers and such vast amounts of orgone and vitae? Prior to this, Mandus did not really believe that the Engineer could destroy the world – London, certainly, but not the whole world. He believes it now. This is not just a factory or even a sacrificial altar. The whole complex is weaponized, driving its own operations in a self-sustaining loop. The more product is processed, the more fuel is made and stored. Then comes more processing and more fuel, building thusly until the moment of release…

What did the Engineer plan to do, exactly? Store up enough energy and then set it all aflame at once, destroy his own operation and the world with it? Mandus does not remember much of the Orb’s visions, but he would not be surprised if his counterpart took inspiration from the weapons of the future. The Engineer was always captivated – or perhaps horrified – by one in particular, Mandus recalls. Nuclear, he called it.

By the time they reach the top of the South Tower, the darkness and the silence have grown oppressive. The longer they spend in these too-similar hallways waiting for something to happen, the more the tension builds. When they open the door at the top of the tower to find yet another set of corridors, they both want to scream. Still, they know there isn’t much further they can go. The heart is very near here, and beyond that the temple, which the Engineer knows is inaccessible to anyone but Mandus and himself. The heart is the key to the temple door, and only two can turn it. If something is going to happen, it will have to be here or not at all.

They take a few steps into the dim corridor, going slowly and warily now. Mandus sets and resets his grip on the double rifle he took with him on safari in simpler times, wishing something would just _happen_ and be done with. He looks at his companion, pale and resolute beside him, and senses absolutely no fear. How can the Engineer fear the future so much he would destroy the world to prevent its coming, and yet not fear for his own life? Or perhaps he doesn’t see mortal peril in this – a threat, certainly, but not real danger. Perhaps as long as he has a weapon, he feels himself in control, even if he isn’t.

Mandus considers their armaments again. “How fast does the compound go up when you burn your offerings?” he asks in no more than a whisper.

The Engineer raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

“Fast, then. Good. We’ll just have to be –”

At that moment, the thing they’ve been waiting for finally happens. The dim lights go out all at once, an electrical crackle splits the air, and not one but both of their enemies appear before them. They are visible for just a moment before they blink out of sight, but it is enough. Mandus remembers them well: huge, bestial Man-pigs, far more powerfully built than the other species, electricity crackling blue beneath the skin, large tanks of Compound X fused to the back and shoulders, no weapons (no need), the brute strength and the unpredictable blinking in and out are more than enough –

Terror fills Mandus’s mind all at once, searing away the thickened calluses around his emotions. At the same time, the Engineer responds like a threatened animal. Adrenaline surges within and between the two men, amplifying, sharpening their instincts beyond human limits. They don’t need to speak, don’t need to think. They just act.

For all the prologue, it’s over very quickly. The heavy footfalls around them burst into a living creature once more. The Engineer is within range. His rifle is inaccurate over such a short distance, but his target is large, and it doesn’t matter where the bullet goes in as long as it does. In the space of a blink he becomes once again the god-king and jaguar warrior. Fearless, he stares down the creature charging at him from the other end of the corridor and pulls the trigger.

He never sees the white phosphate round go into the Tesla pig. There’s only a flash of fire as it ignites the Compound X in the creature’s body and a bang as it explodes. Then he is almost blind and catching a breath of heat that chokes him and Mandus is shoving him down out of the way as the second monster bursts into existence. The Engineer does not resist, just lies on the floor and wills himself to be cold.

Mandus has hunted big game before, but never like this. He is not human now as he was on those occasions. He is a machine, fear his fuel and survival his function.

The massive creature charges and blinks out before he can fire, forcing him to leap aside in the best direction he can guess. His back hits the corridor wall and knocks the breath out of him. The tramping footfalls go harmlessly past, leaving the air charged in their wake. He watches and tries to breathe as the Engineer, still incapacitated on the floor, rolls just barely out of the way.

The creature appears again on the other side of the Engineer. Mandus can tell at once that it smells the compound in the Engineer and would like nothing better than to devour it. He has a second to think, but he doesn’t need even that. His arms move mechanically as he raises his rifle and fires a white phosphate round.

The second Tesla pig vanishes in a roar of flames just as the first one did. The Engineer covers his head and presses his face to the floor, but the heat still hits him like a wave. He knew he must be vulnerable to the fire, given the nature of the compound, but gods, he hadn’t thought it would be so debilitating! Another humiliation to add to a growing list.

Nothing remains of the Tesla pigs, as Mandus hoped it wouldn’t. Their veins hold a primitive, unstable form of the compound that cannot bind their cells properly, leaving them prone to blinking in and out of being. If their bodies are not destroyed promptly and completely, they can achieve an immaterial existence – hence the incendiary bullets.

The Engineer finds himself wishing there was something left. He has a sudden, savage desire to bite into the creatures’ bodies and cool his throat with their blood.

It’s very quiet again.

Mandus is shaking, but he only notices it now. His eyes are dilated, his heart racing, his blood flowing fast and rich. He is frighteningly, painfully aware, as if a veil has been torn away from his mind. It bites fiercely, like blood flowing back into a numbed limb. At the same time, he needs this: an end to the limbo he has hovered in since New Year, confirmation that he is in fact alive.

He stands there breathing hard and shakily for some time. They have just dispatched two more human souls, twisted beyond all recognition though they were. When will all this end?

Then he goes and crouches at the Engineer’s side. The would-be god has sat up by now, but he looks very white and unwell.

Mandus offers him a hand. “Are you hurt?” he asks, his voice thin and hoarse.

The Engineer knocks Mandus’s hand resentfully aside and staggers upright, turning away. His hand goes to his throat just long enough for Mandus to guess that the heat of the incendiary rounds has wounded him.

“You shouldn’t push yourself,” Mandus calls after him. His other has already vanished into the dimness of the South Tower.

888

The Tesla changes everything for both men. For Mandus in particular, the numb scar tissue around his emotions has been torn away. Worn down as it was by weeks of horror, the panic of the Tesla broke it apart. He is entirely defenseless, heart bared to the memories he awakens in the course of the repairs. If it shook him before to realize the brutality of what he has done, now it is almost unbearable.

He thinks back on just how many storage tanks there were in the Tesla, how much orgone and vitae they contained. It leaves him with an overwhelming dread fit to burst his chest. He is so damned _helpless_! His decisions have been made and the consequences have come, and no matter how he may want to, he cannot reverse them. All he can do now is hope that one human body produces a great deal of vitae, so that perhaps there is less blood on his hands than the Tesla would imply. He might have found this a cold but practical thought in the past, but now it revolts him.

A pressure is building inside him. He suspects it will not be long before it demands release.

The Engineer, too, whose own personal crisis has been growing for some time, changes after the Tesla. His sudden desire to drink the compound straight from the throats of the Tesla pigs never leaves him, and he wonders if he might somehow turn this to his advantage. He is ashamed to have been so debilitated by the heat, and in front of Mandus, no less. It drives him to change his situation however he can. He has ideas; he just needs an opportunity and some courage.

At the same time, the Engineer recognizes that Mandus is more vulnerable than ever. He sets about trying to break his counterpart. It isn’t vengeance, more of an attempt to even the score – because the Engineer has been breaking for weeks, and if he must suffer such indignity, so must Mandus. He doesn’t say a word and doesn’t need to. The damage is all in what he leaves unsaid. He is in his heart an actor, and he has quickly learned to do with his face what he did with his voice before he had a body.

In the course of their repairs, they turn up many documents regarding the development of the factory. Before, Mandus understood that he was responsible for all this, but his lack of emotion kept him at a remove. Now, with all his shields burned away, everything is more vivid and real and horrible. Everything he reads is tinged not with dull suspicion, but with one burning thought: _I did this_. He can’t even blame the Engineer anymore, for the Engineer is merely one part of a whole named Oswald Mandus. And if Mandus and the Engineer are one, then it was Mandus’s mind too that designed this dehumanizing system, his mind that lost all semblance of mercy, his mind that spurned his fellow creatures and justified the tortures he inflicted upon them. Mandus now becomes his own judge, as he once judged all humanity, and damns himself for ever thinking he held the moral high ground.

The Engineer once said that at least Mandus’s evil was honest, that he held the blade and slid it home himself where others would let the workhouses and back alleys do the job. Perhaps, Mandus thinks now, this makes him half the hypocrite and twice the monster.

Malicious or not, the Engineer quite intentionally worsens Mandus’s plight. He leans particularly heavily on any mentions of children, Mandus’s fatal weakness. They find Edwin and Enoch’s diary one day. When Mandus looks up from the page of childish letters with tormented eyes and asks, “Do you think they hate me?” the Engineer gravely averts his gaze.

Mandus takes the intended meaning. For a moment he can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t imagine living another moment with the knowledge that because of his actions, he will never see his sons again. But the gears of his self-preservation mechanisms turn against his will, and with a mighty effort, they pull him back from the edge.

The Engineer watches this carefully, and is disappointed.

Another prime opportunity comes when they find Mandus’s own journal hidden in the attic. The Engineer sits by his counterpart in solemn silence as Mandus reads through the record of the past year. He watches Mandus’s face twist with emotions too deep to name as he takes in the violent misanthropy, the words that reduce human suffering to fuel and output. There is no hint as to whether the “product” the entries describe is human or animal. They both know the answer now, of course, but clearly they saw no need to distinguish at the time.

One entry begins, “Children really are the most wonderful, useful creatures!” This sentence holds none of the warmth it ought to: quite the opposite, in fact. From there the entry only descends into unspeakable cruelty. By the end, Mandus is shaking so hard that he’s certain his clockwork heart will twist itself apart in denial of what he has just read. The Engineer watches eagerly for the moment to come, but it never does. Mandus masters himself with a massive effort and throws the journal whole into the fire. It burns, as do Mandus’s emotions, now close to boiling point.

The Engineer does all he can to tip Mandus over the edge. He closes his eyes and shakes his head in solemn condemnation as he watches the journal burn. Mandus remains stubbornly unmoved, or so it seems. Mandus alone knows that he, too, is putting on an act, a defensive mechanism. If he falters for one moment, all the shadows at his heels will overtake him and devour him whole.

And yet, despite all this, Mandus still cannot bring himself to hate the creature of ruin and malice at his side who clearly wishes him nothing but ill. One day they are examining the recently re-fired boiler, and the Engineer, who came along to prove that he will not be brought down by the cloying heat, collapses at Mandus’s feet. Mandus knows he could walk out, lock the door, and leave the compound to boil in the Engineer’s veins. Nevertheless, when he looks down at his counterpart, pale and gasping for every ounce of oxygen in the humid air, he finds he cannot leave. He drags the Engineer out into the cooler hall, at once furious and relived at his own softness. Perhaps he is not yet wholly depraved.

Finally, they find themselves in the engine room, making repairs to the broken steam conduits and blown fuses. There they come across a placard that reads, “Ensure conduits are correctly placed to avoid pressure backdrafts. Child fatalities this month: 17.” Mandus stares at it blankly for a moment, his mind rebelling, but it’s too much. He has been worn down over the course of weeks, and this is the final straw. The Engineer senses it too, like a brittle cracking. He looks up curiously from the wires he is tucking back into place.

Mandus’s mind races out of control, gaining momentum until it is as unstoppable as a flywheel at full steam. Seventeen dead children, in one month? What of all the other months? How many lives were there after Edwin’s and Enoch’s, taken not in the name of desperate love, but of calculated efficiency? Why did he send them to their deaths cleaning the steam pipes when he should have sheltered them from the streets, offered them a father? He sacrificed Edwin and Enoch to protect their innocence, then turned away as innocents just like them died in his service.

He is a monster, and there can be no doubt now. Something about seeing his sins quantified like this gives his evil a magnitude that no amount of blood or callous journal entries ever could. His mind makes the calculations based on the figure before him. No matter how he looks at the results, he cannot make them any less than what they are.

The last bit of his armor finally falls away. He sinks to the floor.

It is very quiet at first, much quieter than he imagined it would be. He just kneels there, rocking slowly back and forth, arms around his waist as if to hold his organs in, thinking of his children, his poor children, all the poor children… Then he begins to laugh, or cry, or perhaps both; it’s difficult to tell when his artificial eyes can’t produce tears. Really, the whole thing is so nightmarish and absurd that it’s worth laughing at, like a penny dreadful. There’s no chance it can be real. Things like this don’t happen to ordinary people…

But it is real. He really has done all he sees before him, and he knows the full extent of it now. With that realization, his laughter rises, turning hysterical. What is he? What has he become? Is there a word terrible enough to describe it?

Something cracks into pieces inside his mind. He presses his face to the grillwork of the floor, gripping the metal to keep from splitting apart, and screams.

It’s just one scream, but it embodies everything that words cannot.

He goes quiet and still after that as grief breaks over him in waves. He has no more energy to fight. It hurts, it hurts so much, but he needs it. He needs to let the dam break lest he destroy himself trying to hold it together. Somewhere in his dimming mind, he understands this, and so he allows it.

The Engineer goes and kneels beside him after a while, thinking Mandus’s clockwork heart may have stopped. But no, he is still breathing ever so softly. Looking about for the cause of Mandus’s sudden collapse, he sees with a scoff that it must be the warning sign near the pressure regulator. How silly that, after all the Engineer’s calculated gestures and pointed silences, a few dead street urchins should be what finally brought Mandus low. But then, what else would it be, really?

The Engineer leans against the wall and watches the shattering of Oswald Mandus come to its anticlimax. He expects to feel vindicated.

He doesn’t. To his supreme consternation, this doesn’t seem right at all.

888

_I hate him! I hate him, I do! I spurn him and his false concern for me! He stole everything from me and brought me to this! I would kill him if it would not risk my own death, would I not? Then why, when I had him broken at my feet as I have been broken too many times, did I not feel myself avenged? He is nothing to me! Certainly he is not my father! To think that a god could be born of a pig – ha!_

Even in his mind, the Engineer’s voice sounds hysterical. Seeing Mandus break has shaken him more deeply than he cares to admit. It reminds him, somehow, of the lights going out layer by layer after Mandus threw the kill switch on New Year’s Eve. It is the same wrongness of something strong crumbling apart that he senses now, and he does not understand. Why should he care? Why should he not rejoice at seeing his enemy fall at last?

He is so confused and upset that he hardly realizes where he is going. He knows instinctively that he must take this opportunity to turn the tables while Mandus is weak, so his feet take him to the tripery.

This vast, subterranean room is like the jungle, he tells himself by way of reassurance: damp and dark and full of decay. But his mind will not be fooled. This place is not like the jungle at all. The dampness here is cold and clammy, there are no sounds of life, and it smells of sick, metallic rot, not damp earth and vegetation. The darkness is too deep for his human eyes to penetrate, but he knows there is a pool of blood and offal before him. All the wastes of the factory are mingled here in this cloaca.

He is already trembling with revulsion at the thought of what he is about to do. One moment of discomfort, he tells himself, and then all his struggles will be ended, his ignominy redressed. He will be a god again. He was a fool not to think of this sooner, really, and he ought to have done it in the Tesla when he had the chance. Blood made him strong once, and it will again.

He kneels at the edge of the blood pool and cups his hands, breathing shallowly through his mouth to block out the smell. A shudder of disgust runs through him at the touch of the cold liquid. He gives thanks that he cannot see.

_I do not need the Orb. I do not need the Machine. I do not need Oswald Mandus._

Swallowing his nausea, he brings his cupped hands to his lips and drinks.

His body, accustomed to the highly purified Compound X, cannot accept this raw substitute. In seconds, he is doubled over, retching and coughing, tears of pain springing to his eyes.

He steels himself for a second attempt as soon as he can, and then another, and another, and another, but no matter how many times he brings the blood to his mouth, he cannot keep it down. The hard lump of tears adds to the burning in his throat until he cannot swallow. In the end his body spasms so violently that he has to give up.

He lies back on the cold stone floor, panting, and frantically tries to make sense of this. The conclusion is shattering: he _does_ need the Orb. 

The compound alone will sustain his body, will serve as fuel and coolant for the Machine, but without the stone egg, that is all. He needs its added mystical energies, its alchemic amplification. Without it, no amount of blood or Compound X will make him a god. It strikes him that perhaps he never was one. If he were, he would not need all these machines, wondrous though they are. He could simply flick his wrist and set the world aflame.

With this last blow, he has truly lost all he has to lose. He is nothing.

He curls on his side as despair burns through the god and the machine and the man and leaves an empty shell behind.

Here in this dungeon where no one can see him break, he wishes for death. The true gods, being capricious and cruel, deny it to him.

_END OF ARC I_


	7. Anew

ARC II: RENASCENT

February-March 1900

_Can a man construct himself anew? Can a man, on realizing who he is, what he has become, tear himself apart down to the bricks and begin again?…Can a man, defined by his actions, defined by that which he now finds abhorrent, set to sabotaging this body his machine, until those children of his soul turn in a new motion, and he may awake to a new sun, a new year, a new century, with hope in his heart?_

Oswald Mandus, 29 December 1899

* * *

6\. Anew

Mandus’s awakening is like swimming up from somewhere very deep. It leaves him exhausted and leaden, but his mind demands light and air, and his body cannot refuse. 

His first conscious sensation is that of detachment. He has only vague memories of what preceded his apparent collapse. Even his body is foreign to him, so much so that he isn’t quite convinced he is alive. Thus, he spends the first few minutes of his wakefulness in reacquainting himself with his faculties. He flexes each finger in turn, stretches his arms and legs, traces the curves of his face, blinks his eyes open and shut, looks around the room. This is his own bedchamber: the curtains drawn against the gray light of a winter’s day, the small clock on the windowsill still frozen at twelve, the writing desk and wardrobe and chinoiserie dressing-screen all in their proper places. Something in him expects to see cage bars descending from the canopy, but there are none. Surprising.

So, he is in his room, where, judging from the layer of grime on his skin and hair, he has been for some time. Why did he come here, and how?

His mind returns to the missing cage bars, sensing that this is part of the answer. Before he can hesitate, he plunges headlong into the fog of memory. The cage bars are missing, he recalls, because he and the Engineer removed them, as they erased all traces of their crimes against humanity.

Once this stone is pulled from the dam, the river is loosed, and the rest of his memories flood back to the surface. The horror-filled days of concealing his sins, the Tesla pigs, the reactor, the initial repairs, the children – his mind balks at this last, but he pushes on – the children who died in his service. That was what sent him staggering to his bedroom to fall into a protective sleep: a plaque in the engine room, tallying up one month’s worth of child fatalities.

A moment passes before he becomes aware of the effect this revelation is having upon him. Tightness is seizing his chest and a cold weight is spreading from his stomach through his veins, filling him with unspeakable dread. He has been numb for so long that he almost doesn’t realize the significance of this: he can feel again. The fire that erupted in the engine room apparently continued to smolder while he slept, melting the last of the armor around his heart.

His first thought about this is a rational one: his newly returned emotions may be troublesome. In the days before his breaking, he sought purpose, reason to live, perhaps even a chance to counterbalance his wrongs, but he could only endure the unspeakable things that came with it because he couldn’t feel. Now that he can, he isn’t at all certain he can go on living. He may well not have the strength.

He shall have to test himself, he decides. He will invoke the worst memories in his possession, and if the pain is not unendurable, he will know that he can survive anything.

Closing his eyes, he summons up his children’s faces as they were in their last moments: still innocent and unknowing, their cheeks rosy with youth, their hair golden as their mother’s, their eyes dark as Mandus’s own. When his chest is unbearably tight, he pushes one step further and pictures his sons’ hearts still warm and fluttering in his hands. With this, unbidden, comes a hallucination from New Year’s Eve: the twins in the reactor control room, holding out those same hearts to him.

These memories deal him such a blow that he curls onto his side like a babe. The pain that began as mental and emotional has breached the physical realm now. His nerves are straining past capacity, he thinks his heart may stop, and if he were to be sick now, he knows burning blood would come up from his stomach.

With his knees drawn up nearly to his chin, he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, trying to stamp out the images branded there. But he can’t, because they aren’t in his eyes they are in his heart and he should rightly carry them forever he owes his children that much and if he can carry them he can carry anything –

He can’t. He can’t think about it, not for one more moment, it’s too much –

But that one moment passes, and then another, and then another, and he is still alive. The pain stabilizes, neither dwindling nor escalating. He becomes aware of his surroundings again. His fingers are curled into the bedsheets and his limbs are quivering as though straining against some incredible force. He can think, too, he discovers when he dares to let his mind wander. His thoughts are remarkably steady, almost detached from his feelings. They tell him that his soul in its inarticulate wisdom has weighed his accumulated guilt against his capacity to bear it and determined that he is strong enough to survive. Mandus isn’t certain he believes this, and yet the pain is fading now, the reopened wounds scarring over so that they ache but do not bleed. The scars will not hold, he knows. He will have to lay these memories to rest somehow, even if he cannot forgive himself. He cannot endure many repetitions of this.

For now, though, he can go on.

For what? He still doesn’t know. He did not find his purpose prior to his collapse; he was too concerned with escaping the asylum. Now, with that grim task managed, he has a bit of room to think critically. The fact remains that he can do nothing for the people who died under his roof, so there is no redemption there. No matter. He does not deserve redemption, he decides now, does not even deserve life. He deserves nothing. Rather, he owes humanity all he can give in return for his crimes. There are always people in need, and he has the means to employ them.

But how? Not by reopening the abattoir. The mere thought of spending his days amidst blood and slaughter makes him ill. He wants nothing more to do with killing, pigs or men. He must reinvent himself. More than that, the machinery under the house is like an infection, gnawing at him, spreading dark tendrils through his heart. He can never use those machines again. Clean they may appear, but they are soaked in death that will never wash away. How could he superintend the operation of the devices that took so many lives, much less engage innocent, unknowing workers to run them? This demon must be exorcised. He doubts he can ever be free of its shadow, but at least he can dismantle these instruments of evil and replace them with…what? Machines of building. Machines of creation. Machines that give, not take.

A plan is forming in his mind, but he hasn’t the strength to carry it out, not when he still can’t imagine facing his fellow men. All he can say for certain is that his heart will surely burst if he causes any more suffering. His purpose now must be to heal.

Suddenly, with the pain in his own body fading, Mandus becomes aware of another ache. This one, however, is the Engineer’s. His anguish must be great indeed for its echo to prick Mandus this way. It seems something terrible has befallen the nearly-god.

It occurs to Mandus that this might be the perfect opportunity to test his new resolve. Whatever the Engineer’s wrongs, he has not lost the capacity to suffer. Extending healing to an enemy would make a fine start to Mandus’s new life.

A pretty enough thought, but not so easily acted upon. Mandus feels no pity for his other. If the Engineer has now lost everything he holds dear, as Mandus has, it is only justice. Or no, not justice, not even now, for the Engineer’s dearest treasures were lies, while Mandus’s were real. Their losses are by no means equivalent, however firmly the Engineer may believe otherwise. That Mandus can neither forget nor forgive.

Still, the objective truth is that they are the only two souls in the world who can understand what they have been through, and they might find it easier to bear together. Abhorrent though it is to think of allying himself with a creature who lied, manipulated, and slaughtered his way to a false godhood, Mandus may have no choice. It was only this unholy alliance, after all, that enabled him to destroy the evidence of his crimes in time to escape the Ministry’s eye. The task ahead of him now – surviving, healing – is larger still.

And lest he be as false as the Engineer, Mandus must not paint himself as a saint forced into sin. He must never forget that he was quite complicit in his counterpart’s plans. That he rejected the Engineer in the eleventh hour does not exonerate him, not when he followed along so willingly for months.

No, whatever his qualms, a renewed and deepened alliance with the Engineer is necessary. Mandus’s plans will require changes that he alone cannot make in a timely manner, and the Engineer’s mechanical intuition will be invaluable.

It strikes Mandus strangely that he is so rational now, even with his emotions returned. The last time he was presented with such unendurable circumstances as these, it shattered his mind and cost him his children. Perhaps it is because he has truly broken as much as any man can break, and, having survived that, nothing more can harm him. Perhaps whatever has replaced his sanity is stronger, colder, like the machine he once lauded as the ideal god. Or perhaps he is simply more level-headed now that the Engineer’s volatile soul has broken with his entirely.

The foreign ache in his heart flares, and this time he examines it more carefully. It isn’t so different from what Mandus felt when he thought of his children just now: abandonment, helplessness, soul-rending despair. He remembers how he saw the Orb break even though he wasn’t in the temple when it happened, how his mind seemed to link with the Engineer’s. Perhaps he can do the same now. Cautiously, he reaches out in thought.

What he finds in his counterpart’s mind sends him reeling back after just a few seconds. There are no discernible thoughts, just a blank, pain-filled darkness and a terrible outcry best rendered as “lost.”

Mandus lies back, breathing hard as the vision passes. The Engineer’s condition is far worse than Mandus’s. While Mandus’s grief is terrifying, it is at least controlled. The Engineer, on the other hand, has been consumed. He may well seize upon anything, even a former enemy, to keep from dissolving into that darkness in his mind.

So, Mandus has a purpose. It may be short-lived, but it is a purpose, and he can’t act on it looking like a laudanum addict.

It has rarely felt so good to bathe as it does now. For a brief moment Mandus understands why the Engineer so desired a “cleansing fire” for the world. He runs the water hotter than he would ordinarily – “ordinary” has lost its meaning. It makes him feel clean inside and out, as if the heat has somehow reached past his skin into his soul and burned away the sins there. Impossible, but the illusion is welcome.

When he is finished, he dresses, tidies his dark hair, and shaves his face clean. His beard was never anything but a game, he reflects. He wore it because he thought it made him look distinguished, fit to mingle with the gentry, but he will never be one of them. His ancestors were local butchers, not noble lords.

There is no place for such petty games in his new life. He has been given a second chance, and he will tailor it to no expectations but his own.

This done, he regards himself critically in his dressing mirror. It isn’t easy, for he sees the Engineer in the shadows of his own face, but he forces himself not to look away. Mandus decides that while his cheeks are a bit hollow and something wild and haunted is fluttering behind his eyes, there is little enough of the madman about him. Passersby on the street, far from knowing the hell he has been through, would merely think him rather grave.

Whatever happens now, he will not break again.

Drawing himself upright, Mandus seeks out the Engineer.


	8. Revelations

7\. Revelations

Mandus’s thought-sharing gave him a taste of the Engineer’s condition, but it did not prepare him for what he finds. The Engineer is lying in a corner of the downstairs parlor, where he seems to have collapsed, wrapped in an overcoat and shaking from head to foot. His skin is sickly gray and icy: colder than Compound X requires, colder than the silent factory explains.

Mandus kneels beside him, close enough to see his lips quivering and his eyes roving deliriously behind the lids. There is a smell, too, a sweet, rotten smell of spoiled meat. There is only one place in the factory where decay is permitted: the tripery, where all the wastes of the processing line are collected for disposal. That hardly seems a fitting place for the Engineer, but perhaps he did not go there willingly. Perhaps – no, almost certainly – he was desperate.

“What have you done to yourself?” Mandus murmurs. “I know your feelings towards filth. Did the tripery make you ill?”

It occurs to him that the chill gripping the Engineer’s body may be a sort of fever, an attempt to freeze rather than burn away the contamination. A disgusting explanation comes to mind, but Mandus will have to wait until his counterpart is conscious to confirm it.

In the meantime, looking at the pathetic figure shivering before him, Mandus begins to notice strange things. Something about the way the Engineer lies curled on his side, knees tucked up, strikes him to the core. He feels no pity, nor is his suspicion dispelled. Yet he is suddenly and forcefully compelled to comfort his one-time adversary.

]He cannot venture too close, however. He isn’t yet ready to take this nameless god of rage and hate into his heart. What reconciliation, then?

The Engineer’s utter vulnerability is a heady brew. Mandus knows he could do absolutely anything, kill the wretched creature, even, and meet with little or no resistance. The trouble is, he doesn’t _want_ to. Perhaps he never truly did. Perhaps it was necessity alone that brought him to the subterranean temple and its deadly throne.

Lacking answers, he lets out a frustrated sigh, then resolves to follow his instincts.

He takes a tartan throw from one of the sofas and tucks it carefully around the Engineer’s trembling form. The Engineer scarcely stirs.

Knowing the Engineer will not allow himself to be moved to a more comfortable place, Mandus starts to rise, but something holds him back.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” he says to his insensate companion. “I’ve seen it in your eyes. You’re so afraid that you can’t imagine finding courage without wearing the mask of a god.”

888

The next time Mandus comes to see him, the Engineer’s eyes are open, albeit glazed and unfocused. He has a dry, frail-sounding cough that seems to take all his strength. This only increases Mandus’s suspicions as to what has made him ill. Mandus has known for some time that the Engineer’s throat was damaged by the heat of the incendiary rounds in the Tesla, and something has plainly made it worse since then.

So Mandus asks his question: “Did you _drink_ that filth in the tripery?”

The Engineer hides his face in the crook of his arm in silent affirmation. He is facing away from Mandus, plainly wanting nothing to do with this inquiry. Mandus sits down beside him nonetheless.

“You know that won’t do you any good. Pig’s blood isn’t like the compound. The compound is based on blood, yes, but it’s human blood, and it’s enriched, purified… No wonder you’re so ill, you poor fool. You’ve poisoned yourself.”

There is no response, of course. The only part of the Engineer that Mandus can see beyond the blankets is his dark, dark hair, already grown long again.

Against all his rational impulses and scarcely knowing why, Mandus goes to the cold storage room in the factory laboratory and retrieves a canister of Compound X. Returning, he very gently lifts the Engineer’s head just enough to put the canister to his lips. The Engineer moans and tosses his head feebly, swallows too much too fast when at last he does accept and nearly chokes, but eventually settles.

Some distant part of Mandus is shocked at the manner he is adopting, and more so at how instinctive it is. “I know it pains you to swallow, but you must drink it,” he says, the words coming easily and without thought. “You’ll feel better when you do.” Beneath his hand, he can feel the Engineer’s pulse in his neck, fluttering like a bird’s. The man’s eyes are half closed, but to Mandus, the fear in them glows as bright as the pool beneath the reactor. “I won’t hurt you. You’re safe. Do you…do you know what that means?”

Again, there is only silence. Mandus expects that. It doesn’t stop him from staying with the Engineer until the canister is empty.

888

The Engineer’s muscles twitch and ripple like a cat’s whenever Mandus lays a hand on his shoulder. It seems an instinctive response.

“Why do you do that?” Mandus murmurs. “Is it because you’ve been so steeped in violence that you expect it from everything and everyone around you? Do you think I’m still waiting to take my revenge? Or is it just that you can’t stand to be touched by a filthy human pig?” A low, soft chuckle. “Humanity isn’t a contagion. Will you ever believe that, I wonder?

“Burdened with the fate of mankind from your first moments… The warrior, forever on guard against the horrors of the world, forever surrounded by horrors of your own making. How starved for gentleness you must be! You say you reveled in the slaughter, and no doubt you did, but you were desperate as well, weren't you? From the very beginning, you’ve been desperate.”

888

“You’ve run yourself into the ground. Surely you ache for comfort, in your heart if not in your mind. Accept it. What can you lose?”

888

Time passes. The Engineer’s color improves a bit and his trembling lessens, but he never moves from his place on the floor. Whether he sleeps or merely lies in some halfway place, Mandus does not know. Whatever the case, the transmitted ache in Mandus’s heart remains strong. The situation is clearly not improving.

And the Engineer's posture…curled on his side, knees drawn up… What is it about that posture that strikes Mandus so?

888

“Why don’t you have a bath, if you feel strong enough? Or eat something, at least? I know that…concoction in your veins gives you strength, but I don’t believe I’ve seen you eat all month! Even you must be hungry by now. You won’t get well if you don’t look after yourself, you know. You _do_ want to get well, don’t you?”

888

The more Mandus thinks on the Engineer’s plan to save humanity, the less sense it makes. No doubt the things he saw in the Orb would have driven anyone to drastic action, but the method the Engineer chose – the wholesale annihilation of the world – does not fit. Mad though the Engineer assuredly is, New Year’s Eve proved that he also prizes elegance and well-played drama. Destroying the world certainly would have been the most efficient way to halt the onset of the twentieth century, but it would also have been crude, unsubtle. A sudden flare of rage that wants no thought, no logic, only release.

In short, not a particularly graceful means of salvation.

Even the Engineer’s mechanized altar seems wrong. Many of the Aztec gods are violent, but Mandus doubts they would sanction the spilling of human blood, so precious to the pantheon, without reverence or ritual. How could the Engineer, then, claim to be one of them while committing such blatant sacrilege?

No, none of it makes sense. “Insanity” does not quite sum it up, either, but Mandus cannot put his finger on the proper word.

888

“What sort of god would you have been, had you succeeded? Would you have created a new world? I suppose you would have done, or else you would have had nothing to rule over. Or hadn’t you thought of that? Quite an oversight.”

888

Alphabet blocks scattered on the floor of the attic nursery. Edwin and Enoch playing, building with alphabet blocks, knocking down a whole tower, a tantrum…

Why is Mandus thinking of that just now?

888

Several days pass before Mandus acknowledges that his tactics are not working. The Engineer has not moved from the parlor floor, taken any food or drinks of Compound X, or spoken a word. In the meantime, Mandus has been dismantling the pigline and setting his new venture in motion, but it will mean nothing without the Engineer’s allegiance. Mandus cannot manage this business alone. He lacks the Engineer’s uncanny ability to sense the precise condition of all the machines in the complex, as if his body resonates with them.

That strange inclination to comfort his other have not faded, either. If anything, it's gotten stronger. Mandus still cannot identify it, but it seems old and fundamental to his character.

He may have to resist that impulse. Gentleness has achieved nothing thus far.

888

“You needn’t be a god to do something worthwhile, you know. You are stubborn, clever, skilled… This mechanical intuition of yours, you could make so much of it. Do you really mean to cast it all aside because you can no longer chase a delusion? Or can’t you see anything past the blinding light of your godhood? Well, you’d best blink and clear your vision, little one, or you won’t have any future at all. Is that what you want? Have you given up?”

888

Edwin and Enoch, knocking down their block tower. The Engineer’s plan for the apocalypse; its inelegance. His curled posture. Mandus’s mind keeps returning to these three things.

888

And why did the Engineer want to destroy humanity? Certainly, his disdain for mankind overflowed on New Year’s Eve, culminating in that bitterest of condemnations, “This world is a machine, a machine for pigs, fit only for the slaughtering of pigs.” But within that hateful rhetoric were other words too, words like _save_ and _spare_ and _free_ and _redeem_. Granted, it might have been insincere, but on the other hand…

Mandus remembers his thoughts as he climbed the South Tower on New Year’s Eve, his last farewell to his children: _Only to save you, only to spare you. I would have given my soul to spare you this world and its loam._ That was how he justified taking his sons’ lives in Mexico. His language, he realizes slowly, was unsettlingly like the Engineer’s.

He sits down hard, covering his mouth. _Oh, dear God._

The Engineer’s apocalypse was an inheritance.

888

“You only did what I showed you to do, didn’t you? What else could you have done? I killed my children to spare them, and are human beings not children in the eyes of a god?”

888

The difference between them, Mandus thinks, is that the Engineer hated his so-called children, while Mandus never did. As he looks deeper into his heart, however, he realizes that it isn’t so simple. Much as he strove to silence it, he could never escape the creeping certainty that Lily would still be alive if not for Edwin and Enoch. It kept Mandus away from their cradles in the early days of their lives. In time, of course, he became their mother and father both, loved them doubly and fiercely because Lily could not. But the shard of loss within him never dulled.

This is the true difference between them. They are both fathers, but where one exulted in hating his children, the other subjugated hatred to love.

Did the Engineer ever love humanity? Did he bury this love, just as Mandus buried his bitterness? That would make them perfect mirrors if it were true, two paradoxes, each an inversion of the other.

888

He has thought this before: that the moment his children were born was the moment his soul began to split, the moment a great clock began to tick down to the shattering in Mexico. Is everyone like this, Mandus wonders? Do all souls simply await the trigger, the precise set of circumstances that will break them apart and unchain their other selves? Do most people manage to avoid such circumstances? Or is Mandus particularly susceptible?

Whatever the case, his decision remains the same: he can accept that the Engineer is a fundamental part of him, and he a part of the Engineer, or he can deny it.

His instincts have the answer.

888

“You poor creature. You never had a chance, did you?”

888

Inevitably, Mandus’s patience runs out. His nerves are raw, and recent events have left him exhausted. The breaking point comes when he is sitting with the Engineer as he has many times over the past week. The Engineer, who has not spoken a word since New Year’s Eve, suddenly turns over to face him and says in a thin, hoarse voice, “Mandus, why don’t you just kill me?”

Mandus’s feels a visceral sense of rejection, so definitive that he himself cannot understand it. Certainly he has sworn never to harm another human being, but with all that has happened, he should still be tempted to kill the Engineer. Instead, denial screams through Mandus from the depths of his soul.

When the nausea fades, he says simply, “Because I don’t want to.” In truth, this is all he can say for certain.

The Engineer looks at Mandus with lifeless dark eyes and says, “You should.”

For all practical purposes, Mandus should agree, but he has learned at high cost to trust his instincts over his mind. His instincts are perfectly clear now. Swallowing all other thoughts, he asks, “Don't you want to live?” 

The Engineer’s eyes close wearily. “Not like this.”

A spark of anger flares in Mandus. “Like what? Like a mortal man? You cannot have a godhood, and so you’ve decided it would be better to die? Do you imagine that you have lost any more than I have, that you are more wounded than I? My lost children, my lost _life_ – those are no delusions, unlike your divinity, but I have not given up. I am not yet done.”

“Congratulations. You must be very strong.” Although the Engineer's voice is feeble, its acidity remains biting.

“Not so strong.” Mandus gives a bitter, self-deprecating smile. “If I were strong, my children would be alive and neither of us would be in this unholy mess, would we? No, what I have is purpose, which is, I think, precisely what you lack. I've decided to spend whatever remains of my life in doing as much good as I possibly can. I owe mankind a debt, and I mean to pay it. You, on the other hand, set your heart on impossible things and surrendered all sense of reality. Now, with your fantasies gone, you are lost. That’s your trouble.”

Mandus sees the Engineer’s face twist at these words and wonders if he is doing more harm than good, but suddenly, he cannot stop. He has endured the Engineer’s stubborn silence for a week. He has been patient and gentle and encouraging (which is more than the Engineer deserves), all the while burying his own resentment. Now he can no longer hold it back. Does the Engineer truly believe himself to be the only broken man in this house? The thought is infuriating.

“Listen to me,” he goes on. “I would very much prefer you gave yourself a chance, for pity’s sake, but I cannot – will not – force you. I will stand beside you if you choose to fight, but I am far too tired to drag you to salvation. The choice is entirely yours: you can claim the life you might have had if that stone had been kinder, or you can lie here and wait for death. And don’t you ever ask me to kill you again. I have enough blood on my hands because of you, and I will not add yours to it. If you truly long to die, you shall have to do it yourself.”

Mandus is breathing hard by this time, though he only realizes it now. He has said more than he meant to, watched the Engineer absorb his words like blows, but he does not regret it. It needed to be said, for both their sakes.

“What do you want?” the Engineer asks after a moment, shaking his head helplessly.

Before he can bite his tongue, Mandus says, “I want you to prove to me that you are anything more than my shadow.”

At this, the Engineer seems to find a sudden burst of strength. Though it clearly costs him dear, he pushes himself to his knees and looks Mandus squarely in the face. His breathing is fast and shallow and his eyes fever-bright.

“I am _not_ ,” he says, voice low and fraying, “your shadow.”

Some part of Mandus recognizes that the Engineer is on a precipice, but the bridge is already crossed. “No?” he says. “Then what are you?”

The Engineer stares at him, face stricken, silently begging Mandus to say that impossible thing. Mandus could make the world right with those few words, he realizes. He could affirm the Engineer’s godhood, and all would be well again, just like that. As Mandus considers the naïve simplicity of this, all the mysteries of the past week suddenly fall into place. It all points to one conclusion, one Mandus has perhaps always known in his heart but never accepted. He understands now why he thinks of Edwin and Enoch in the Engineer’s presence, why he is so struck by the Engineer’s sleeping posture, why he finds the Engineer’s plan for salvation so inelegant. Why he rejects the thought of killing the Engineer.

_Like knocking down a tower of blocks amidst a tantrum. I see you now, little one._

“What are you?” Mandus asks again, tone already softening.

The Engineer blinks, and the wetness in his eyes spills over. “A god,” he whispers. “A god. A –” He chokes softly even as his lips continue to form the words. Then, apparently horrified by his own tears, buries his head in his hands. The muffled sounds that emerge are broken, sporadic, as if the Engineer has heard of crying but has no conception of how the thing is done.

Mandus sighs. His own affairs will have to wait a bit longer.

“Don’t you know how to cry properly?” he says, faintly exasperated. “Or perhaps you aren’t yet fully accustomed to this body of yours. Easy, now. Don’t hold your breath. They’re only tears; you aren’t dying. In fact, I daresay this may do you some good.”

But the Engineer is beyond reason. He bends double, making small, choked noises, one hand covering his face and the other clutching his abdomen as if to hold himself together. Mandus can feel a twisting in his gut, the echo of the immense forces threatening to tear the Engineer apart.

Unlike the Engineer, Mandus has the clarity to probe these feelings and sort through them. One is most certainly the Engineer’s refusal to admit the truth of his humanity. The other, even simpler to identify, is his need for comfort, which is growing more desperate by the moment. He is deeply wounded, this child, and no wonder: his first moments as a conscious being consisted of nightmarish, scarcely comprehensible visions of the future. He needs care, yet his pride will not allow him to accept it.

The hand covering the Engineer’s face falls away and twists itself into the rug. Seeing this, Mandus is reminded strongly of his own breaking. He understands that the Engineer has now reached the same point of no return.

“I know,” Mandus murmurs softly. “You feel you must surely split apart, and so you must, but it will be better afterward. Don’t fight. You are safe with me. Let go.”

Compelled to comfort this newly revealed child, Mandus moves to put a hand on the Engineer's shoulder. Before he can do so, however, the Engineer lurches upright, face damp, hair disheveled, eyes wild, panting to suppress his tears. _Leave me alone_ , those eyes say, but also _Save me_ , and _Make it all right. Take the hurt away._

“Let go,” Mandus says again, as gently as he can. “You’ve been fighting from the moment you were born, carrying a burden that should never have been yours. Let it go. This is a safe place to lay it down.”

The Engineer obviously believes he will be destroyed if he allows the dam to break, but he is also utterly spent. His recent illness, the damage to the factory, and his loss of identity have claimed every ounce of his strength and spirit. He casts about as if for an escape, shaking all over, muttering unintelligibly between strangled gasps. His eyes meet Mandus’s once more, begging for an answer. Then suddenly, his body gives out. He slumps limp and shivering against Mandus’s shoulder, with just enough agency left to hide his face and his graceless tears. The tension goes out of him in a rush. His grief, for all its obvious force, is very quiet. All Mandus can hear are harsh, erratic breaths.

Whatever Mandus expected, it wasn’t this. He hoped the Engineer would let down his walls, of course, but he never thought it would happen in his presence. Forcing down his surprise, he gives himself over once more to his instincts. They warn him that much though he may want to, he should not offer any comforting touch. The Engineer cannot stand human contact, and in his current state, it might well tip him over the edge.

A moment later, however, the Engineer’s hands reach up mechanically, unwillingly, impulsively, to twist themselves into Mandus’s sleeve and pull Mandus’s arm around him. His grip is like that of a drowning man, as if he hopes that holding onto Mandus will hold his own damaged soul together.

“There you are, little one,” Mandus says softly. “That’s it. You rest.”

His instincts remind him that it doesn’t matter what he says now as long as it is soothing.

888

The Engineer is cold. Mandus is warm. Mandus makes him warm.

Warmth is good.

Few thoughts remain in the Engineer’s ravaged mind. They drift in and out of his consciousness like barely formed denizens of the deep ocean.

But no. Mandus hurt him. He does not want Mandus’s warmth.

He does.

He cannot accept it.

He must.

"You’ve lost all your blankets,” he hears Mandus say. Something pleasantly heavy is draped around him.

He is already so weak; what more has he to lose?

He hates Mandus’s hand on his shoulder. He should shake it off.

But he needs it. Will shatter without it.

Perhaps that is why he hates it.

888

Mandus has not felt this way in ages.

It is inexplicably comforting to sit here with the Engineer’s weight against him, feeling his counterpart’s uneven breathing gradually settle and deepen. Mandus desperately needs this: to offer aid to another living being. It doesn’t seem to matter that the man-god-child in his arms was his greatest enemy not so long ago. Stepping back into the role of father for the first time since Edwin and Enoch's deaths fulfills the deepest imperative in his soul. It saves him.

He risks drawing the Engineer into a more comfortable position beside him. Their arms remain linked. The Engineer is still trembling, but it has lessened a great deal. He is no longer struggling to swallow his tears.

It's strange, but Mandus is almost content.

They can never forget or perhaps even forgive the things that have passed between them, but they are no longer adversaries. The war is over, the truce is made, and left amidst the ruins are two broken people who alone can help each other rebuild.

Nothing like love drives Mandus to console the creature at his side, nothing like pity, just an impulse as essential as breathing. And yet, it is his first truly gentle act in close to a year. That is worth marking. Perhaps he is not wholly irredeemable yet.

He runs his free hand gently over the Engineer’s tangled black hair – the Engineer flinches a bit but does not pull away. Although Mandus knows this is because the Engineer is too weak to resist, he cannot help but hope for progress. He will gladly content himself with small victories, for now and perhaps for the rest of his life.

By now, the Engineer is nearly asleep, apparently trusting that Mandus’s arm will hold him together while he rests – or left with no alternative. His body is limp, bled dry of strength, his breathing slow and regular once more.

“Do you feel any better?” Mandus says in a low voice.

The Engineer lifts his head an inch, looks at Mandus with pain-hazed eyes. He tries to speak, coughs weakly instead. “No,” he rasps, voice thick. 

“You will once you’ve rested some more. You must be exhausted at the moment. You can sleep, if you like, or I can fetch you some food and another canister. It might soothe your throat.”

Even as he says this, Mandus knows that the Engineer wants none of these things. He does not want to sleep and eat and drink like a man, does not want to sit here terribly ill while his enemy looks after him, does not want to accept the coming future.

Mandus shifts his weight, folding his arms across the Engineer’s grasping one. “I know, you would far rather be a god,” he says, without mockery or malice. “Well, let’s see. What is a god, really? A creator. An authority, someone very powerful and wise, someone to turn to in time of need.”

“Unafraid,” comes the hoarse addition, muttered into Mandus’s shoulder.

“Not necessarily. Even Christ feared to be crucified, and did not your Feathered Serpent despair when the Lord of Death withheld the bones of the four creations? Fear and despair are sisters.”

The Engineer has no answer. Mandus takes this to mean either that he is considering or is too ill for serious thought.

“So, with all these things in mind, what is a god?” Mandus goes on. “A leader. You could be that, you know. As long as your heart is breaking, I might warn you that I mean to reopen the factory, and properly this time. Not as an abattoir, I think – I can’t stand any more blood and death. I know a few fellows who might help us establish a machine shop. The textile works in the north are always in need of parts. God knows it’ll be a risk, but I need to start afresh, to…reinvent myself. Things can hardly get worse than they already are. You’ll need workers to help you tend the machines. You can choose them for yourself, of course.”

This at last breaks through the Engineer’s stupor. He looks up, eyes already liquid again and full of disbelief, then twists as forcefully as he can. Mandus lets him go. He knew this would happen, and he ought not to push. The Engineer, frail as he is, quickly loses his equilibrium. He drops onto his side amidst his nest of blankets, in which he hides his face.

Mandus sighs softly. _Well, it was a start_ , he thinks. _It was never going to be easy for him to hear what I have in mind. Best he hears it sooner rather than late._

He looks at his counterpart’s curled form, silently recognizing that he has become a father again whether he is ready or not. _God grant me strength to care for this child. He so desperately needs care._

“You may hate me,” Mandus murmurs, “for safeguarding whatever future may come, but consider that the future is not for mortal minds. That stone in Mexico was no friend of yours. It placed the fate of humanity on your newborn shoulders. That is the cruelest injustice that was ever done to you.”

There is no answer, of course.

Mandus has much more to say. He wants the Engineer to give himself a chance, though he cannot explain why. Perhaps it is only that he cannot possibly stomach any more suffering. Still, it is not for him to decide what the Engineer does next. He has already taken the choice of life and death away from two of his children, and he will not do the same to the third.


	9. Standing Up

8\. Standing Up

The Engineer does not wake again until morning. He blinks blearily at the ceiling for a moment, blissfully ignorant, his thoughts vague…and then memory slams into him like a crossbow bolt.

Why? Why did he allow Mandus to comfort him? Not so long ago, he would have spurned even the thought of such humiliation. True, he was too weak to do much else, but he might at least have put up a show of resistance! But no, he sat there and wept on his destroyer’s shoulder like a child, and now he will surely never hear the end of it. Why do his gods allow this?

And why did it feel so right, so good? It was undeniably soothing to lean against Mandus, to feel Mandus's supporting warmth and strength. In all his short life, the Engineer has never known such a feeling. Until New Year, _he_ was always the watchman, the guardian, shielding the world from its own cruelty and his maker from the factory’s horrors. How many times, especially early in their partnership, did he speak reassurance to Mandus’s troubled mind? He hadn’t realized that his quest for salvation and divinity had taken such a toll on him. Surely it shouldn’t have.

But of course it should, because the Engineer isn’t, and never could be, divine.

His eyes prickle at the thought of all he has lost, of all he never had, but he refuses to allow himself more tears. He almost couldn’t stop last time, almost lost himself. Instead, he occupies his mind with assessing his condition for the first time since drinking the pig’s blood. It is all he feels capable of at present.

Turning onto his other side is dizzying, but not impossible – a start. He has little hope of standing or walking, but perhaps he can accustom himself to sitting upright before Mandus accosts him again.

What he sees when he props himself on his elbow, however, stops him dead. Placed next to him, close enough to guarantee his notice, is a plate of neatly sliced bread, cheese, and cold meats. Beside it, a small bucket of water holding a canister of Compound X. The water is still quite cool, so Mandus must have been here recently.

The care with which these offerings have been laid out is absurdly obvious. Mandus is ridiculous for going to such trouble. The Engineer should feel naught but contempt for such sentimentality, yet part of him is genuinely moved. He has never known kindness like this – never asked for it, never needed it. Why should he care that a human pig is concerned for his well-being? It makes no difference to him if his enemy wastes time with such foolishness.

But it does, enough to tighten his throat with a mixture of shame and…gratitude?

He should leave the plate here, he knows, and refuse his adversary’s aid. That would save him some shred of pride. Yet he is so weak, and the nourishment may help him to feel less pathetic. Besides, he needs to give his throat something to do before the tears claw their way up it again.

He takes a slice of bread in both shaky hands.

The first few bites bring on painful coughs, but after careful sips of the compound, his half-healed throat eases enough for him to swallow. He must go slowly to stop his starved body from rebelling. When the plate is empty, he realizes that his head is rather clearer.

So, he _did_ need to eat. Mandus was right again. Gods, the man is going to be insufferable the next time they meet.

And they must meet again, if the Engineer is to retain any dignity at all. This business of lying on the floor and taking comfort from the man who ruined him cannot continue. Little though the Engineer wants to live, he cannot die without making it quite plain that he does not need Mandus’s aid. If he leaves this undone, he will find no peace in this life or the next.

But he cannot go to Mandus now, with his hair in tangles and his clothes rumpled and a layer of grit on his skin. No, he shall have to have a bath first, no matter what it costs him. He may not be a god, but he will not be a pig.

Right. First, he has to stand up.

888

It is a long, slow walk to the bath, accomplished only by bracing himself against the wall every few steps. It leaves him shaking harder than ever, and that is the least of his troubles. He has changed clothes and bathed many times before now, of course, but it hasn't gotten any easier to bear the sight of his human body. It reminds him vividly of what he is and how far he has fallen, so viscerally that he feels ill. Although his spirits lift at the thought of being clean, he spends as little time in the bath as possible, and that with his knees drawn up tight. He is unspeakably relieved when he is dressed again and toweling off his hair.

If he were to probe his maker’s mind, he would find that this is just how Mandus began _his_ new life: with an awakening and a bath. The two men are linked in more ways than they know.

Feeling slightly less miserable, he ties his hair back and sits down gratefully on the bed in the adjoining guestroom. He realizes that this is the same room he stumbled into on New Year’s Day, bruised and frightened and newly human. He has not made much progress since then.

It occurs to him that he could put an end to all this indignity – lock himself in the boiler room or drink more pig’s blood, and that would be that. But he is stubborn. Much though he wanted to give up as he lay on the parlor floor, and much though he wants to be free of his human bonds and the terrible knowledge he possesses, he cannot stomach surrender. That would give Mandus the satisfaction of winning the war. This stubbornness kept his poisoned body alive this past week, even though he ached for death with all his heart.

He doesn’t know what he is living for. If he is not a god, he is nothing at all.

He can’t think about that now.

Well, he can live to spite Mandus and his misplaced concern. That is purpose enough for now. It will take something more profound to sustain him if he decides to make a new life, but he is far too tired to consider what that might be.

He casts his mind into the complex that was once his body and with which he is still intimately linked. He senses Mandus’s presence in the cellar. Well, at least he won’t have to walk too far. He wouldn’t trust himself to manage the factory’s many stairs, up or down, with his limbs heavy and his head still swimming a bit. Settling a throw around his shoulders like a shawl in the hopes of staving off his tremors, he sets out.

Downstairs, in the dim space beneath the house, amidst dirt floors and unmortared stone, Mandus is stacking barrels. The cellar holds some of the supplies necessary to keep the factory running, machine oil, coolant, and fuel for the delivery vehicles among them. The tremors of the Machine’s awakening on New Year’s Eve sent many of these barrels rolling across the floor, but as none of them broke open, they went largely ignored in the rush to erase more sinister evidence. It is only now, with crimes buried and urgent repairs effected, that attention can be devoted to the mundane task of setting the barrels in order.

More time and more attention do not, however, make the barrels any lighter. The Engineer stands in the doorway to the chemical storage room for a time, watching his maker’s muscles strain beneath his shirt. Despite the cellar’s clammy air, Mandus wears no coat, and his face is shining in the dim light of the bare incandescent lamps overhead. If even he is taxed by his labors, he who is healthy and rested, the Engineer has little hope of joining him in his task. But he must try. He must prove that he is not weak in any sense, that he does not need care, that he is willing to stand up and work to carve out a new life.

(He isn’t at all willing, and he wants his old life, not a new one. But his pride must be appeased.)

Mandus does not notice his counterpart until he has rolled his current barrel across the floor and set it upright against the wall. When he has done this, he looks the Engineer up and down as he catches his breath.

“Should you be on your feet?” Mandus asks. If he is surprised, he gives no sign. “Surely you must still be feeling poorly.”

 _Don’t patronize me._ The Engineer gazes steadily at his maker. “Give me an occupation.”

Mandus looks from the barrels to his counterpart. “I commend you for coming this far in your state, and I mean that sincerely, but you cannot possibly do this.”

“I am capable of more than you believe. Give me an occupation.”

“You’ll see yourself hurt.”

The Engineer folds his arms, plants his trembling legs. “Mandus, give me an occupation, or I shall die.”

Mandus looks tempted to roll his eyes at these dramatics, but he says nothing, just keeps his gaze locked on the Engineer and considers. A silent contest of wills ensues, each man daring the other to stand down. The Engineer can feel Mandus’s mind probing gently at his own, seeking weakness, and the Engineer pushes back as firmly as he can. He is determined not to reveal the frightened child Mandus cradled to sleep yesterday.

Finally, Mandus shrugs. “Suit yourself. See what you can do.”

Pleased with this victory, the Engineer bends to help Mandus push the next barrel against the wall. He soon regrets his insistence. His trembling turns violent, and he scarcely stays upright. Once the barrel is in place, he leans heavily on the cool stone wall until his blackening vision clears. Mandus watches him closely, but the Engineer utters no word of complaint. As soon as he can, he crosses the room and takes his position behind the next barrel.

Soon, they have completed one row. Even were they both healthy, they would not be able to lift more barrels atop these; the liquid in them is simply too heavy. Thankfully, there is a pulley system just beside the barrels. With this, one person can man the ropes while the other stands on the first row of barrels and transfers casks from the pulley’s basket to the second row.

Being undeniably weaker in body, the Engineer silently takes his place at the ropes. He prays that the simple machine will give him enough assistance to keep his feet. Thankfully, all the barrels bound for the second row are partially empty, having been siphoned off to smaller tanks and canisters used for factory maintenance. The Engineer gives Mandus grudging credit for putting all the full barrels on the bottom. Even so, he has not been pulling on the ropes long before his hands and arms begin to shake and burn.

The Engineer's ill health makes for slow going, but Mandus is infuriatingly patient. He never says a word, nor does he offer aid. He just watches, dark eyes impassive. Every time the Engineer looks up at that hatefully calm face, wishing it would shatter to mirror his own heart, he finds untapped stores of energy. Every time he resists the urge to collapse or scream in frustration, he feels a burst of hot, invigorating spite.

 _I will not break again_ , he thinks. _Not for you. Not for the stone egg. Not for the gods. If I must live, I will not live in shame. I will not live in your shadow._

But these small victories do not prevent his unsteady hands from slipping. His body is so wracked that the compound can no longer effect speedy healing. Cracks and blisters soon appear on his palms.

Mandus has just received the last barrel and lifted it from the pulley’s basket when the Engineer slips for the final time. There is enough latent force in the Engineer's hands to pitch him backward and off his feet. The ropes sear through his fingers as he stumbles.

Sitting on the dirt floor, he lets out a petulant growl. His hands and eyes are burning. He isn’t fooling anyone, he realizes, neither Mandus nor himself. He is weak and pathetic and as far from divine as it is possible to be; anyone could see that. How could he ever have hoped to prove his independence to Mandus when he cannot even fool himself? He is nothing, and he knows it, has known it since the Orb broke. Everything else was denial.

He stares determinedly at the floor as Mandus steps down from his perch. He swats away Mandus's offered hand. _Such a child_ , Mandus must be thinking.

“You did well,” Mandus ventures, “much better than I expected, and I mean no offense. Don’t take this to heart; you’ve been very ill –”

“How am I meant to work?” the Engineer bursts out, suddenly infuriated. How dare Mandus stand over him thinking himself superior while the Engineer sits in the dirt? “I’ve been shaking since New Year; how am I meant to work if I can’t stop shaking?”

As ever, Mandus’s face is gentle and unreadable. The Engineer does not try to look into his mind. “It will stop,” Mandus says softly. “Once you rest and eat and heal, it will stop. We’ll get the factory running again, and then you’ll feel better. And no more bloodletting. I don’t imagine that concoction in your veins replenishes itself like human blood, and vast as your stores are, they aren’t unlimited.”

This is almost too much to bear. “Would you take my obsidian knife and my _cuauhxicalli_ from me and forbid me to serve my gods? Would you leave me with absolutely nothing?” Against all his efforts, the Engineer's voice frays on the last few words.

“I would keep you from harming yourself. Can you not do your gods reverence through prayer or offerings of food and drink?”

“No! Only blood may pay for blood, and this world turns because the gods shed theirs!”

Mandus sighs, folding his arms. “Do you honestly believe that's the literal truth of – well, never mind. I only wish you would let yourself –”

“I don't need you to watch over me!” The Engineer pushes himself to his feet, swaying dangerously. “All I wanted when I came here today – all I ever wanted – was for you to know my strength, and –” His voice, which has been rising, fails. He goes silent, breathing hard, swallowing harder. No more tears. Not now, of all times.

Once again his body betrays him. Once again his hand twists into Mandus’s shirt, just like in the cellar weeks ago, and once again they both know that it isn't only for balance.

Mandus is very still. “You _are_ strong, and brave,” he says steadily. “The world has fallen out from under you, and you could have lain down and died, but you are still here. You are strong for living, even if only to spite me.”

The Engineer blinks his eyes dry, at once furious that Mandus can see through him and longing for more affirmations.

“Spare me your pity,” he wrings from his tight throat.

“It isn’t pity. You are stubborn, and that may well be why you survive: that is simple fact.”

The Engineer’s thoughts are a jumble of contradictions: _I need you I hate you leave me don’t leave me my creator my destroyer my father my betrayer I don’t need you I need you I hate that I need you I need you please don’t leave me_

“Stubbornness won't save me,” he hisses, “when you’ve left me with nothing. You’ve even taken my processing line. Do you not see, Mandus? Godhood is all I know! I am _nothing_ if not a god! Do you not see what you’ve done to me?”

Mandus’s hands twitch as though to grasp the Engineer’s wrists, but he restrains himself with an obvious stiffening. He lets out a forceful breath. “Child, I took nothing from you that you would not have lost had you destroyed the world. Do you truly believe that stone would have made you a god? It would have given you power, but power alone isn't divinity. Without wisdom, you would have found yourself helpless to create a world any better than this one. Come to that, how much power _could_ it have given you? Could it have shielded you from the world’s destruction? As it is, you're still alive."

A strangled laugh escapes the Engineer’s lips. “Alive for _what?_ ” he hisses. His face is wet, but he can no longer bring himself to care. One more indignity hardly makes a difference. “I live because of you; you ought to tell me how to go on. What am I, Mandus? _What am I?_ ”

Mandus doesn’t know; that is plain in his silence, although his gaze never wavers. Water drips incessantly somewhere in the depths of the cellar, grating at the Engineer’s frayed nerves.

Then Mandus says, “You are whatever you choose to be. You have freedom now, do you not see? That stone overwhelmed your mind, showed you things you could not help but act upon. It’s gone now, and the decisions are yours.”

"I cannot be free now that I have seen the future!” The Engineer shakes his head, feeling himself on the verge of a precipice again. “I cannot simply forget!”

This time Mandus does grasp the Engineer’s hands, so tightly that pulling away is impossible. The Engineer hates the touch, and yet he feels he will come apart without it.

“And I cannot forget that I ki – what I did to my children, but I must live,” Mandus asserts. "I can still do good things, or at least I pray God so. You can as well. I told you once before that you are clever and stubborn and skilled. You needn’t be a god to put those qualities to use.”

“The future –”

“The future is not yours to bear!” Mandus’s voice is filled with mingled sympathy and exasperation. He gives the Engineer’s hands a shake. “You still refuse to accept that. Cease fighting, for pity’s sake, and devote yourself to something you _can_ achieve.”

 _Can I achieve anything?_ Until he lost the Orb, the Engineer had no doubt he could finish what he started on New Year’s Eve and free himself from his human form. The stone’s breaking was an unexpected, crushing blow. At the time, he couldn’t understand why it would abandon him so soon after drawing his soul from the failing Machine. If he had truly lost his affinity with it, why would it place him in the spare body?

He begins to suspect now, however, that the Orb had nothing to do with the events of early New Year’s Day. Perhaps he fled the Machine under his own power, acted on an instinct so fundamental that he did not remember it afterward. Perhaps he saved himself. He looked upon the stone egg as a conscious, active partner in his endeavors, but now it seems that it was never any such thing. It was an unthinking weapon, and he simply managed to grasp hold of its power for a brief moment in time. After New Year, consumed by fear and shame and uncertainty, he lost the strength of spirit to wield it, and it slipped the leash. He made himself unworthy; the Orb did not judge him so.

And if all this is true, where does it leave him?

Mandus undoubtedly hears something of these thoughts, but he holds his tongue. His gaze is fixed on the Engineer’s, face cast in uncertain shadows, touch firm and supportive.

“The wars the Orb showed us are not the only wars, you know,” he says with quiet fervor. “There are other plagues upon humanity, scourges of which we are all aware but from which many look away. I did so myself, once. Their names are Hunger and Poverty, Degradation and Neglect. Neither you nor I can expect to erase them from the world, but we can help our workers to keep them at bay and encourage others in our position to do the same.”

This all sounds terribly naïve and idealistic to the Engineer, and it does nothing to lift his despair. “Do you hope to turn pigs back into men?” he scoffs.

Mandus appears to consider this. Then, with the air of one who has made a discovery, he says, “Yes, exactly. In a symbolic sense, of course, but that is what I mean to do.”

“It will make little difference to the world.”

“No, but it may make a great deal of difference to the people I take under my roof. I would think you’d find the prospect of a machine shop attractive: machines making other machines.”

The Engineer shakes his head, but in truth he isn’t sure. To him, deliverance through death is the only true means of salvation. Anything else would be incomplete. He does not believe for a moment that employment offers protection from the cruelty of the world, no matter how gently Mandus might treat his future workers. Still, the Engineer needs a purpose, or he will die, and Mandus’s new workshop is the only one on offer. Besides…machines making other machines does sound intriguing.

He gives himself a mental shake. _Don’t agree with him, you fool!_

His limited stamina exhausted, he lets his head droop. He has never felt so defeated as he has this past month.

Mandus releases his grip, laying gentle fingers on the Engineer’s arm. “You can think about all this once you’ve had some more rest,” he says. “The barrels will keep. Upstairs with you.”

The Engineer finds Mandus’s paternal tone deeply aggravating, but he has no strength to resist. He allows Mandus to escort him back up to the house.

On the way, he looks down at his trembling hands and realizes that this is the second time he has accepted Mandus’s comforting touch. But why? Human contact is contaminating, filthy, and it reminds him of what he has become. Why does he not resist?

Everything was so much simpler before New Year’s Eve.


	10. Détente

9\. Détente

If the Engineer sees nothing in his future, Mandus sees too much. He has a list of tasks to accomplish, all of which seem insurmountable. Ordering the machinery for his new operation and finding customers is by far the least intimidating. More pressingly, the anniversary of his children’s death is approaching, and their loss remains an unhealed wound. He will not survive long if he does not make peace with it. That has been clear since the morning he called up memories of Edwin and Enoch to test his resolve.

Thus, on one of his trips to replenish the larder, he enquires at the offices of the same shipping line he took to Mexico last year. There he learns that the next voyage is fast approaching. His courage fails him, and he does not book passage.

That day, doing the shopping is enough of a trial. It isn’t the first time he has been to the food markets since New Year, but that does not make it any easier. Never mind the stares he attracts as a well-dressed gentleman doing his own errands; it is almost unbearable to mingle with so many other people. His mind races, wondering if any of those around him lost loved ones to his abattoir, until he feels physically ill. How will he ever form close relationships with his workers if he cannot even endure passersby?

He supposes he will eventually grow accustomed to his new life. For the time, it is as if his grief has trapped him in a narrow room filled with flying barbs and stones, and nearly every one of them strikes him. With time and with healing, he wonders, will the room expand until only a very few stones find their mark? Will there come a time when he does not see ghosts and guilt in the most mundane places? Perhaps not entirely, but he hopes it will be better than this.

In the meantime, the Engineer is the only puzzle Mandus feels capable of addressing.

The Engineer continues to help straighten up the factory, though he does not try to lift any more barrels or take apart the pigline. Instead, he occupies himself with the lighter tasks of sweeping, organizing supply shelves, and washing windows and control panels. He spends his days in sullen silence and his nights shivering with terrible dreams. Mandus convinces him to eat more regularly and to sleep in a bed, not on the floor. His health improves after that, but his spirits are another matter. He knows he is only losing the pigline, not the engines, the pumps, the boiler, or any of the other core systems, but he can’t help but despair.

One day, he disappears. Mandus goes on with his work, somewhat uneasy but sensing that his counterpart is still close.

He takes his supper in the kitchen that evening. He is thankful for his boyhood disobedience: had he not spent so much time with the cook (against his father's wishes), he would not have learned to feed himself. It's the only reason he hasn't starved this past month without servants to do the cooking. Butchering meat is one thing; assembling meals is quite another. He is just sitting down, a pot of stew nearly ready on the fire, when he hears the cellar door open. A moment later, the Engineer walks in, soaked and shaking from head to foot. He sets something on the scrubbed wooden table, pulls out a chair, and holds his hands to the hearth fire.

Mandus eyes the water dripping from his counterpart’s hair and sighs. “What have you done to yourself now?” he asks, as gently as he can in his exasperation.

The Engineer stares into the fire to avoid his maker's gaze. “I fell.”

“You fell.”

“From the temple.”

“Not from the very top, I hope.”

“No. The steps.”

Mandus did not realize there was water at the base of the underground temple, but of course, there were more pressing matters at hand on New Year’s Eve.

“Why were you at the temple?”

The Engineer does not answer for a long while. Water plinks steadily onto the paving stones beneath his feet. He is shaking harder than usual: those subterrene waters must have been unnaturally cold to make him shiver.

Then at last he lets out a slow, resigned breath, as if quite aware that Mandus is prepared to sit here in silence until the Engineer answers.

“I thought…perhaps the stone egg might be…” His voice is barely above a whisper, full of hurt and shame.

Mandus’s first instinct is to give the Engineer a stern talking-to, as he has done on many occasions. Then he considers more carefully how the Engineer might view his speeches: as opportunities for Mandus to lord his wisdom over his poor benighted child, no doubt. Perhaps it is too soon for the Engineer, in his wounded pride, to see such Mandus's paternal instincts as anything but condescension. It was the same with Edwin and Enoch, he recalls now, and the same in his own boyhood. He can remember becoming so frustrated with the German noun cases his mother was attempting to teach him that he refused to hear anything she said. With keen perception and grace born of years in the Prussian court, Adelaide Mandus left him alone to calm himself. Afterward, somehow, the lesson didn’t seem so difficult.

With this in mind, Mandus bites his tongue. “You don’t need the stone egg,” he says simply. “Now, why don’t you get changed and have some of the stew on the fire?”

The Engineer eyes him suspiciously for a time, plainly expecting a scolding. When none comes, he stands up and gestures at the object he placed on the table. “I found something of yours,” he says, and takes his leave.

Mandus looks at the object for the first time. His blood seems to turn both hot and cold at once. It is the hand-cranked lantern he carried on New Year’s Eve, gray metal, its back stamped with the Mandus Processing Company seal: the letters M, P, and C arranged to resemble a pig’s face in abstract. He has not seen it in a month. He supposes he left it in the temple after his near death.

He runs his fingers almost affectionately over the scuffs and dents in the metal, marks of the several falls he took that hellish night. This is an old, faithful friend come back to him, battered but steadfast.

And in the hands of the Engineer, no less.

The Engineer must know what this lantern means to Mandus, but why would he bring it back? Perhaps the Engineer himself does not understand.

888

To Mandus’s surprise, the Engineer returns shortly.

He looks in somewhat better spirits with dry clothes on, a throw around his shoulders, and his hair tied back, but he walks slowly, like a man who is uncertain of his footing. He pauses for a moment with his hand on the kitchen doorframe and peers cautiously at Mandus. Then, before he can stop himself, he steps inside, fills his bowl at the hearth, and sits down across from his maker with defiance in his eyes.

They say little at first. For a time there is only the scrape of their spoons against their bowls, ringing softly off the brick walls and stone floors.

Then slowly, breaches begin to appear in their barricades.

The lantern between them serves as a starting point. Despite its ties to New Year’s Eve, the object itself is neutral.

“I must have left it at the altar,” Mandus begins, tone purposely light.

The Engineer shakes his head, blows delicately on his spoon. “At the entrance.”

“Really? I must have set it down when I first came in, then. I do recall feeling as if it would be wrong, somehow, to bring light into that place. I wonder that I didn’t stumble on those steps in the dark.”

“ _I_ obviously did.”

“It isn’t like you to be clumsy. Are you still feeling weak?”

“Not so much now, but… I suppose I was upset.”

Mandus sets down his spoon and looks steadily at his other. “You know, I think you ought to get away from here and sort yourself out,” he says. “I plan to go to Mexico in little more than a week, if I can bring myself to book passage. Come with me. Speak to your gods, ask them your questions, let them turn you in the right direction. Start over.”

“Mexico.” As he speaks the name of his birthplace, the Engineer’s eyes grow distant, then sad. “I…cannot return there, Mandus. I have no place there anymore. I never did. My gods do not answer me.”

"Or perhaps they do, but not in the way you wish.”

The Engineer sits upright, slamming his palms down on the table. “Mandus, why must you always presume to know what I need? You may be part of me, but you are _not me_.” He sighs. “As it is, I’m sure the heat in Mexico would be the death of me.”

“Not this time of year, if you drank enough – forgive me, I don't intend to condescend. I mean you no ill.”

Folding his arms, the Engineer asks, “Why?”

The word hangs in the air for some time. Mandus has asked himself this same deceptively simple question many times, but he has arrived at no answer save that now his duty is to heal. Has he ever really hated the Engineer? He has been angry, certainly, very angry. Still, the fact remains that the Engineer did not force Mandus to follow him on his quest for salvation. The greatest sin of all – the deaths of Edwin and Enoch – was Mandus’s alone. Beyond that, the Engineer has unknowingly helped Mandus to survive. In those numb days after New Year, solving the puzzle of the child in the god's mask gave Mandus purpose. He still wants to solve it. Though hatred is always a breath away, none of these circumstances permit it to blossom.

This is too much to explain, so Mandus says only what he has said before: “I have no appetite for suffering, even yours – particularly now that I see you for the child you are, though that does not excuse you. Moreover, I wish to understand you. You are, as you say, part of me.”

The Engineer’s eyes narrow. “I am not a child.”

“But you are. You may share my memories, but you've only lived independently of me for a year. You have so little experience of life: of course that makes you a child. I think you know that.” Sensing that he is lecturing again, Mandus changes the subject. “I also believe you influenced me even before our souls were parted.”

“Do you?” the Engineer says, one eyebrow raised.

“Oh, yes, even as a boy. When my father disciplined me or the schoolmasters called on me for an answer, I became something else, something colder, harder. I think that was you, or the part of me that became you, at any rate. Does everyone have that hidden core of ruthlessness, I wonder? Does everyone have an Engineer, their own… What was it you used to call yourself, when we first…met?”

The Engineer smiles faintly. He seems to like the idea of protecting Mandus through all the trials of his youth: his patron saint, his guardian god. A strange thing, given all that has happened since.

“Yollotli,” the Engineer answers. “It means ‘heart.’” His voice is odd, almost affectionate, but sad. Mandus is certain that had the Engineer become a god, this would have been his divine name.

“Heart of the Machine,” Mandus says softly. “Heart of my heart. It suits you.”

This talk seems to comfort the Engineer, allowing him to retain a tiny piece of the godhood he has lost. “Do you remember,” he says, the words slipping from him as if against his better judgment, “the voyage home from Mexico?”

“I remember you were with me in my fever. I remember you gave me dreams of a great machine.”

“I drew the fever from you.”

"Or the stone egg did, at your behest. You certainly drew my mercy from me.”

“Leeched it from your bones, to make you strong for our great works.”

“To protect me, in your own strange way? Or to harden me, lest I be overwhelmed by horror and turn on you?”

The Engineer’s eyes gleam. “Perhaps both.”

Then suddenly, all the life and light goes out of his face. He seems to realize that he has said too much, made himself vulnerable - made himself human. He has spoken more in the past few minutes than he has in a month, and now he regrets it. He plainly does not desire a reconciliation. Of course he doesn't: his hatred of Mandus is the last bit of certainty in his crumbling world. Mandus sees the moment the iron doors slam shut behind the Engineer’s eyes.

He does not leave the kitchen, but he finishes his meal without another word.

“Think about Mexico,” Mandus suggests hesitantly.

His counterpart lifts a dismissive hand.

Left in silence with the glowing embers on the hearth and the battered lantern on the table, Mandus is not disappointed. Tonight, he saw the first chinks appear in the wall of the Engineer’s fear and anger and resentment. They will not be easily mended or forgotten. There is, he knows now, life behind those dark, haunted eyes. The person he glimpsed was wounded, bitter, cruel, but also protective and determined to prove himself. That has potential.

And Mandus has hope.

After a while, the Engineer lays his head down on the table and goes to sleep. Mandus knows he ought to wake him and send him to bed, but he decides to let him be for the moment. He tips his chair back on two legs, arms folded across his chest, and stares at the gas lamps hanging from the ceiling. At another time, in another life, he would have been irked by the fact that the rest of the house has electricity while the kitchen does not. Now he doesn’t know if his mind will ever again wander freely to such mundane tasks. He manages well enough when he has work to occupy him, but left to his own devices as he is now, all he can think is that in a few weeks, his children will have been dead for a year.

Tending to the Engineer fulfills Mandus, but the Engineer is not Edwin or Enoch. He is a child, yes, but a half feral, half mad one. He cannot replace Mandus’s sons or soothe the ache of their loss. Only Mexico offers a chance of healing. If Mandus does not go back, his own memories will devour him sooner rather than late. The Engineer and the new business have distracted him thus far, but for how long? He has been having dreams, and they all end with bloody hearts in his hands, at his lips, in his mouth…

As if responding to Mandus’s thoughts, the Engineer begins to twitch. His hands clench and unclench on the table; he tosses his head fitfully against his folded arms. He is muttering, too, much of it incomprehensible. Other phrases are all too clear: “Don’t show me” and “I don’t want to see.” He is having his own nightmare, and Mandus does not have to guess what it contains.

Mandus watches for a moment, uncertain whether shaking the Engineer awake will do more harm than good. In the intervening moments, the Engineer’s breathless mutterings turn to tear-filled pleas. Soon Mandus’s instincts can abide this no longer. He stands up, goes to the Engineer’s side, and takes him by the shoulders.

The Engineer comes around almost at once with a hoarse, wordless shout. His head snaps up, eyes wild, hands already seeking to push Mandus’s away.

Mandus lets go. “It’s all right, it’s all right. You were dreaming. You’re safe now.”

The Engineer looks away, trying to regain control of his breathing. One hand reaches back and grasps Mandus’s for just a moment before pulling away.

“What did you see?” Mandus murmurs. He thinks he knows.

The Engineer shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he says thickly. “Things I cannot stop. I’ve seen them before.”

“The things you spoke of on New Year’s Eve.”

“You don't recall the stone egg’s visions?”

“Not clearly.”

“Then you are fortunate, Mandus, and I shall tell you no more of them. I would not inflict those visions on any living creature, not even you. I wish to the gods _I_ remained ignorant.”

Mandus sits down in the chair beside the Engineer’s, meeting his counterpart’s liquid gaze. “You must reconcile with this, little one,” he says earnestly, “or you will never be able to live. I do understand, you know –”

“You don’t! Gods, I swore I would never let you see me break –”

“I’ve been having dreams, too, of my children. We both need to go to Mexico and confront these things, or else I suspect we shan’t endure long.”

“I told you, I can never go back there. My gods have renounced me.”

“And _I_ told _you_ that you do not know that, and you _will_ not know unless you go.”

A scoff. “You don't so much as believe my gods are real!”

“I don’t know what I believe, but the fact remains that _something_ showed us the future, something far beyond our understanding. Perhaps it was your gods, perhaps mine. Perhaps the distinction does not matter.” Mandus sighs, catches himself before he can take the Engineer’s white-knuckled hand in his. “Consider it, little one, as I said.”

The Engineer blinks wearily at him. “I shall.” His voice is flat, exhausted.

“Very well. Now, shouldn’t you get to bed? You still aren’t well.”

Drawing his tartan shawl about him, the Engineer stands to go.

Mandus gathers up their bowls, puts them in the sink, and fills them with water. He'll contend with the washing up in the morning. The fire is no more than coals now; it can be left as is. With that, he takes the lantern in hand, intending to put it in a safe, secret place in his bedroom. “I’ll be right behind you,” he tells his counterpart.

 _That was the last thing I said to Professor A. before I killed him. Would that I could wash my conscience clean of all these ghosts as easily as those bowls in the kitchen. But no, that wouldn’t be right. Better that they haunt me. I_ should _be haunted._

Mexico has little bearing on the Professor or his death, but the two ghosts who matter most may dwell there still. Mandus must go back.


	11. Progress

10\. Progress

That night changes many things, if only slowly. There is as of yet little trust between the two men, but that conversation in the kitchen – their first to end in anything but tears – has cracked the armor of their mutual antipathy.

For the Engineer, everything is much more complicated now that he remembers, for the first time in an age, that he once tried to protect Mandus. He certainly had practical reasons for suppressing Mandus’s half of their shared consciousness, but not only that. At one time, the Engineer truly believed his maker superior to other human pigs. To him, Mandus was too good and pure to know the full extent of the bloodstained path to deliverance. Of course, this was little more than a story the Engineer told himself. Mandus was – and is – no more or less human than anyone else. Even so, Mandus was, if only briefly and inadequately, the first person the Engineer saved.

The Engineer must have cared for Mandus, or at least for the innocence he perceived in the man. It’s difficult to imagine now, having lost so much at Mandus’s hands. Still, the instinctive way he responds to Mandus’s comforting gestures is impossible to deny. If not for that impulse, he would say his own heart was deceiving him.

He does not _want_ to take comfort from his creator, destroyer, and father, yet exhaustion tempts him to accept it. If he does, he may lose his hatred of Mandus, the last remaining piece of his identity. Solid as it feels, he suspects it may fall away at the slightest provocation. Nothing of him is stable anymore. Nothing is certain, least of all what will be left if he sheds his former self.

Mandus is right about one thing: the Engineer must answer these questions if he means to live. And he does; he hates the thought of surrender more than the thought of life. He isn’t at all sure that Mexico holds the answers he seeks, however. Mexico is inextricably associated with his godhood. If he returns there, he knows he will slip back into that dream and not resurface until his heart is broken all over again. That, a second time, will kill him.

Where to go, then? He cannot simply stay in the factory; it means just as much to him as Mexico. He must think on this.

In the meantime, Mandus and the Engineer accustom themselves to each other’s presence. This is the first time they have truly been free to observe, hampered neither by illness nor the fear of arrest. There is nothing profound about this process. On the contrary, the small, seemingly meaningless events make all the difference.

For instance, they find themselves taking their meals in the same room most days – often in different corners and often in silence, but always near each other. They share the parlor in the evenings, too, reading books or writing letters to contacts in the machining trade or just sitting in the warmth of the fire. A few weeks ago, neither man would have been able to sit in the same room with the other without distrustful glances or sharp words. Even during the Engineer’s illness, when Mandus spent much of his time working in the factory, he cast his senses into the house every few minutes to ensure that the Engineer had not moved from the parlor floor. Now, they ignore each other almost entirely.

One such evening, the Engineer has just woken from troubled dreams to the sound of soft piano music. At first he thinks Mandus may be playing in the adjoining room, but no, the sound is tinny, crackling, and Mandus is not so skillful. The dynamic contrast, the sensitivity, the shaping of the lines – all marks of a professional musician.

The Engineer sits up from the corner of the sofa, captivated. He knows this piece, but he has never truly listened to it until now. The melody is sweet, gentle and rocking like a lullaby, and simple enough to hum. It is a caress, like waves beneath a boat or wind across his skin. In its indefinable wisdom, it wends its way into his soul and wraps around his heart. He feels his eyes drift closed, his tremors slowing and his uneasy dream dissipating. He has always loved classical music, even played Debussy through the factory loudspeakers to calm the products, but he never thought to be soothed by it himself. Does that make him little better than the human pigs who passed down his conveyors?

From an armchair by the fire, Mandus watches with a gentle smile on his lips. Beside him on the end table is the source of the music: a cylinder phonograph, constructed by Mandus but heavily indebted to the work of Edison. The crank at one end of the burnished wooden base is turning steadily, as is the wax cylinder resting upon it. Mandus watches the stylus trace the lines of sound engraved in the wax. Some mechanical sorcery converts these lines into the music now emanating from the graceful bell. A most marvelous device, he thinks. Far better it should be used to ease the Engineer’s nightmares than to lull the soon-to-be slaughtered into false security.

“Do you like it?” Mandus asks. “You were shaking a moment ago, but you seem much better now. It’s Beethoven –”

“The adagio from the Sonata ‘Pathétique’, yes.”

“Precisely. I would have thought you would prefer the allegro or the rondo. They’re both dark and full of fire. That would suit you better.”

“Perhaps,” is all the Engineer says before curling back up.

Mandus considers his counterpart, the hard lines of his features now smoothed by a rare and beautiful peace. He looks young, as young as he is at heart.

 _But of course_ , Mandus thinks. _Darkness and fire are familiar to you: you need no music to invoke them. Peace, on the other hand…_

The song ends and the phonograph spring winds down with a whir and a crackle. Mandus looks over at the Engineer, whose eyes are closed again, and resets the cylinder at its beginning.

_May it keep both our dreams away, little one._

888 _  
_

Another evening. The Engineer is sitting cross-legged against the parlor wall, contemplating the bust of a jaguar warrior on the mantel. He wonders if he will ever again see Mexico, the place of his birth, and who he will be if he does.

In another corner, Mandus is folded up on one end of the sofa with a book in his hands, which he hopes will lull him into a dreamless sleep. It is an old mechanical treatise, filled with diagrams of Boulton and Watt steam engines. Their technology is commonplace by now, but Mandus finds great solace in the familiar sketches. His finger traces the lines of the beam and the piston rods, the curve of the flywheel, with something like reverence. However uncertain the future, he thinks, human ingenuity never fades. From Mesopotamia to the present, there have been great inventions and feats of engineering, triumphs over ignorance and the elements. Looking at these old books gives Mandus hope that it will always be so. In stubborn creativity humanity may yet find salvation.

Mandus looks up to find the Engineer staring intently at him. “You can sit over here if you like,” he offers.

The Engineer raises an eyebrow. _Why would I want to do that?_

“I have no ulterior motive,” Mandus says lightly. “I merely thought you might be more comfortable on the sofa than on the floor.”

“There are other pieces of furniture in this room, if I find myself uncomfortable.”

“Suit yourself.”

The Engineer rests his head on the wainscot just beneath the elegant ivory wallpaper. The ornate floral pattern gleams softly gold in the glow of the electric wall sconces behind their scalloped glass. He could sleep right here, and hope his dreams take him to the bucolic landscapes in the paintings on the walls. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine he feels the vibrations of his great engines through the floor. That would be such a happy dream. It is peopled with planers and lathes instead of automatic blades, but the steam still sings through the pipes, fire still dances beneath the boiler, and the earth still trembles at the lifting of mighty mechanical arms.

But he isn’t tired, and even if he were, his dreams would not be so pleasant.

So, what to do? How to calm his restless mind, so full of thoughts of his future and his lost godhood, and stave off the nightmares?

He looks up at Mandus: book in hand, perfectly serene.

_No, surely not. I am not so desperate._

But perhaps…

The next time Mandus glances up, the Engineer is sitting at the edge of the oriental rug instead of against the wall. Mandus smiles faintly behind his book. He has extended his hand: now he will wait.

The clock ticks away an hour. Mandus never sees the Engineer move; he does it so quietly and stealthily. But move he does, driven by a need for comfort, his resolve softened by Mandus’s patience. He progresses from the edge of the rug to its middle; from its middle to an armchair; from that armchair to a nearer one. Then finally, as Mandus watches, the Engineer stands up cautiously and perches himself on the arm of the sofa.

Afraid of shattering this moment, Mandus holds his silence. The Engineer has never come to him willingly, and perhaps he has not truly done so now. But he has come, and that means a great deal.

His hand reaches into Mandus’s field of vision and touches the drawing of Watt’s steam engine with a tenderness too poignant for words. Mandus does not dare to move, but he knows what expression the Engineer’s eyes must hold.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mandus ventures. “I must say, I’m eager to see our own factory full of new machines. You must feel the same.”

“I’m eager to cease feeling like an invalid,” the Engineer mutters.

“Will your body mirror the condition of our new equipment as it does the old?”

 _Yes_ , the Engineer thinks. Abattoir or machine shop, it makes no difference. It is all the Machine to him. It is mechanism to which he is bound, body and soul, not any particular device. As long as there is a factory beneath this house, he suspects he will always be able to feel it. He suspects, too, that these feelings arise not from reality but from his own mind: a desperate attempt to cling to his mechanical godhood and deny his humanity.

"Well, I suppose that if you can still sense what goes on, you can prevent me and my future workers from wreaking havoc,” Mandus adds.

This, of course, is exactly what the Engineer was thinking. It is also the nearest they have ever come to humor.

888

An afternoon, this time in the attic.

In his arrogance or madness or perhaps both, Mandus recorded the progress of last year’s redemptory endeavors on wax phonograph cylinders. He destroyed all these incriminating recordings soon after New Year – all save one, which he kept in a locked drawer in the garret. Recently he has decided that it, too, should feed the fire. Before he does so, he takes a phonograph up to the attic and allows the Engineer to listen.

The Engineer almost jumps as his own voice crackles through the small space, soaked in malice and childish exuberance:

“ _I live! I breathe again! I rise, I will rise to bleach the sky and still the water! I will spin the world wheel and set the future upon the path to redemption!_ ”

Mandus’s voice, frantic, demands, “ _Where are my children? You promised me my children!_ ”

And the Engineer’s voice crows, “ _My time is come! More pig, MORE PIG!_ ”

As the recording ends, the Engineer shakes his head disdainfully. “…Humiliating,” he growls. “That is not the voice of a god. Why did you never tell me I sounded so utterly ridiculous?”

Mandus quirks an eyebrow. “I didn’t think it would improve my chances of survival.”

“You found this phonograph in the reactor control room on New Year’s Eve, you said? Why was it recording? Did you start it up? And why have you kept it all this time?” The Engineer’s questions come quick and flustered. His face has taken on a dusky blueish tint that Mandus suspects is a flush of embarrassment. The Compound X that passes for his blood, after all, is blue, not red.

“Well, I’m pleased to know that this shames you now that you hear it with a cool head. As to who made the recording, I cannot say. Perhaps a ghost.” (The Engineer rolls his eyes, though he knows Edwin and Enoch were very much present in the factory that fateful night.) “I’ve kept it hidden because…well, I wanted to be sure that you could never tempt me back to your mad quest for salvation. This reminds me that for all your guile, you were, even at the height of your power, little more than a child playing make-believe.”

“I was not!” The Engineer stands up in a rush, nearly strikes his head on a ceiling beam, and sits sheepishly back down.

Turning the cylinder over in his hands, Mandus grins wickedly. “I don’t think I shall be needing the reminder any longer.”

888

Their nightmares continue to bring them together, just as on that evening in the kitchen.

One night, Mandus wakes wheezing and coughing from a dream he cannot remember, certain that there is blood on his pillow, certain that his lungs are collapsing, certain that his children are watching him die with righteousness in their eyes. His panicked gaze falls on the bedroom door, where faint blueish light is seeping in from the windows in the hall. Does he see two little figures there, golden-haired and dressed in red?

Then a hand grips his shoulder. Someone has indeed been watching him, but it is not his sons. Blinding light floods his bedside: hellfire, surely. He thrashes, trying to free himself from the demon that has hold of him and the flames it brings with it. It’s calling his name, calling him among the damned.

His captor gives him a shake, then pulls him roughly upright. “Mandus!” the voice calls again, low and authoritative. “Mandus, will you come to your senses?”

…these do not sound like the words of Satan.

He still can’t breathe freely, but his eyes have adjusted enough to see that the light comes from a lantern. His tormentor is no more or less than his tousle-haired Engineer.

“That’s better,” says his counterpart presently, seeing the clarity return to Mandus’s eyes. “Now, breathe.”

Mandus shakes his head, coughs raggedly.

“Yes, you can. It was only a dream. Breathe.”

Without truly knowing why, the Engineer fills a glass from the pitcher on the night-table and presses it none too gently into his maker’s hands. He is reminded strongly of closing Mandus’s chest wound with the compound and forcing him to swallow the rest of the canister. This is much the same, he reflects. While not exactly a bid for survival, Mandus’s nightmare was powerful enough to set a roiling in the Engineer’s gut, and he has no desire to be sick tonight. Vomiting is a most unpleasant experience, the pig’s blood taught him.

Having drained the glass of water, Mandus draws one more wheezing breath and then finds the obstruction in his chest suddenly gone. His can breathe freely again, if rather heavily.

“There, you see? Just a dream.” The Engineer feels a knot in his stomach loosen as his maker relaxes. “What _were_ you dreaming of, by the by? It must have been rather awful. Your nightmares don’t ordinarily make me ill.” The stress he lays on this last phrase is entirely intentional, and Mandus knows it.

Mandus takes a deep, shuddering breath, choosing not to rise to the bait. “I don’t know, exactly,” he says weakly. “Something to do with New Year’s Eve. I’m convinced I breathed in something foul in the engine room or the pipes – somewhere that godless concoction of yours was boiled for steam. That must have been what I was dreaming: that I caught a lungful of poison and couldn’t breathe. At least, I thought it was a dream, but then I woke and there was blood on…” He looks down, and his fear turns to confusion. “…the pillow.”

The pillow cover is spotlessly white.

“Nothing there,” the Engineer affirms. “If your lungs had been damaged on New Year’s Eve, you would have known before now, what with all your labors.”

“Would you lie to me?” Mandus asks. He is suddenly suspicious that this is a plot to get rid of him.

“No, Mandus,” the Engineer sighs. He only wants to get back to sleep. “Not about this, at any rate. Need I remind you that if you were to sicken and die, you might well take me with you?”

“And you did not,” Mandus goes on, endeavoring to sound offhand, though he is shaking all over, “see my children in the doorway, watching me die?”

Ah, therein lies the true horror, and the source of the Engineer’s nausea. Nothing else in this dream seems distressing enough to bleed from Mandus’s soul into his own.

“No, Mandus,” he says again, more seriously this time. The Engineer will never treat the subject of the twins with any sort of malice, not even to strike Mandus where it hurts him most. Though the Engineer did not raise them, they are his sons, too. In his own way he grieves the necessity of their deaths. “They led you to my – to the Machine’s heart so that you might redeem yourself, though I shall never understand why you needed redemption. Why would they now wish you dead?”

“Because I should not be al – never mind, this is too much for such an hour.” Mandus sinks back against his pillows, one hand covering his eyes.

The Engineer considers his maker, and the turmoil he senses in Mandus’s mind. Though he wants to say something scornful, all he can think of is how _wrong_ it felt to watch Mandus break that day in the engine room, to watch something strong crumble apart. Tonight, he senses an echo of that wrongness.

“You _do_ need to return to Mexico,” he says after a pause. “You need to sort all this out, or else I shall never again have a decent night’s rest…not that I do so now.”

Mandus cannot tell if these words hold callousness, spite, or a strange, brutal sort of encouragement. Quite possibly all three, along with a large dose of childlike selfishness.

Again, he does not take the bait. “And you will not come with me?”

“No,” the Engineer says, standing to go, “but you ought to take _this_ with you.” He taps the lantern on the night-table – Mandus’s old lantern. “It served you well once before. Perhaps I was meant to bring it back from the underground temple. Perhaps you will carry it to another temple and climb the steps with it in hand.”

“And you? Where will you make your…pilgrimage?” 

The Engineer thinks for a moment. “If I do so at all, it must be a place that means nothing to me. You’ll let me know if you think of such a place, won’t you?” The lantern’s beam is dimming, but Mandus hears the sardonic false courtesy in the Engineer’s voice.

Mandus catches the Engineer’s wrist just as he is about to leave. “Will you stay?” he whispers. He is terrified that if he is left alone, he will see those small ghosts in the doorway again.

A soft exhale. Then, “No, Mandus. You are not a child. Now, goodnight.”

The Engineer has already done more for Mandus than he can understand; staying at his side is out of the question. Something compels him, however, to crank the lantern and leave it on the night-table, in case Mandus does not want to go back to sleep in the dark.

He is paying a debt, the Engineer decides. Mandus soothed him when he woke from that nightmare in the kitchen, and now the Engineer has reciprocated. They are even.

Yes, that’s all it is.

888

The next morning, with precious few days to spare, Mandus reserves his place on the next voyage to Mexico.

There is no going back now, in this or in anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've never heard the adagio cantabile from Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique, it's a gorgeous piece. [Here's a recording.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H98Ms1wex2Y)
> 
> We see cylinder phonographs throughout the game - that's how Mandus recorded his conversations with the Professor - but [here's a real-life example from the same era.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph_cylinder#/media/File:EdisonPhonograph.jpg%22)


	12. Verge

11\. Verge

The Engineer sleeps late to recover from his nighttime sojourn. Left alone in the manor while Mandus goes to book passage to Mexico, he decides to straighten up his bedroom. He neglected it during his illness, but now that he has the strength and the time, he is determined to make it tidy again. His mood is as good as it has been in a long while. The cylinder phonograph on the dresser is playing the first mysterious, rippling bars of Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture, Mandus is out, and he has the house to himself.

Having smoothed the deep green duvet and tucked in the corners, he straightens up to survey his handiwork. This, the first-floor guestroom, is a bit of an imposing place, with its red-papered walls, heavy bedcurtains, ornate rug, and dark wooden furniture. The room also has no windows, so its only light comes from a pair of lamps and the wall sconces in the corridor beyond. All of this suits the Engineer perfectly. Sunlight is too hot, too bright, and makes him feel as if the disapproving eye of Huitzilopochtli is upon him. As for the brooding colors, well, the Engineer doesn’t mind the encouragement to sulk. He has more than enough on his mind.

Why did he go to Mandus last night, for instance? He tells himself it was only to allay Mandus’s fears and, by extension, the heaving in his own gut. A purely selfish motive.

But he was so gentle – at least, by his standards. He gave Mandus water, even left the lantern on the night-table to give him courage. None of that was necessary, or even self-serving. He could easily have left Mandus alone in the dark as soon as the man’s breathing returned to normal, but he didn’t. He didn’t stay, either, but even so…

What is happening to him? He never gave a single thought to his maker’s well-being before. Something within him has been softening ever since his illness, warmed by Mandus’s gentleness. Much though he tries, he cannot forget that day in the parlor, when Mandus held him and soothed him and made him feel safe.

He fingers the outline of the pig-faced pendant beneath his shirt, the last emblem of his godhood. No, this will not do. Gods cannot be soft, cannot seek comfort from humans.

But he isn’t a god, is he?

As always, the thought is so terrifying that he sinks onto the bed, dizzy with anxiety. The helplessness that wells up within him when he thinks of facing the future without power, without identity, without courage, is unbearable. How is he to live like this? Why can’t Mandus tell him _that_ , if he knows so much?

He squeezes his eyes shut and curls his fingers into the bedclothes to keep from splitting apart.

When he has calmed a bit, he considers that Mandus may not be as confident as he seems. That wise, placid façade may be as much of a mask as the Engineer’s godhood: a defensive illusion to help him bear the weight of all he has done and endured. The dream Mandus described last night, and the fear he implied – that his children might hate him… Those were not the marks of a man at peace. For the first time, the Engineer realizes that Mandus may not have risen completely from the ashes.

The thought is the most comforting he has had since New Year’s Eve. If Mandus, too, is broken, then he is not the Engineer’s superior. They have both lost the foundations of their identity, and they are both starting from the beginning.

But, the Engineer cautions himself, that sort of thinking may tempt him into an alliance with Mandus, and _that_ might begin a dangerous spiral into camaraderie or even companionship. No, Mandus cannot be forgiven so easily. The Engineer will not be weak before his enemy.

_Is_ Mandus an enemy? Would an enemy comfort him while he lay on the floor, sick and despairing and defenseless? But if Mandus is not an enemy and the Engineer is not a god, then there is no sense left in the world.

He runs his hands over his face, more confused than ever, then stands up with a snarl. 

Music still makes sense, if nothing else does. He crosses the room and resets the phonograph cylinder. He closes his eyes as that first motif reaches his ears, deep and monotonous and soothing as waves. He pictures high, rugged cliffs, gray waters, unsettled skies. Loneliness, starkness, hard beauty, just like his machines –

“That’s where you should go.”

The Engineer jumps, turning to see Mandus in the doorway. It takes him a moment to lock away his vulnerability and school his face into a mask. “And what on earth do you mean by that?” he says, voice satisfyingly expressionless.

“Forgive me, I did not intend to startle you,” Mandus says, stepping into the room and sitting down on the bed. The Engineer flinches as the duvet rumples. “That piece you’re playing – it’s ‘The Hebrides,’ isn’t it? That’s where you should go on your pilgrimage. Of course, I suspect it will be miserable this time of year, but the cold does you no harm. Some of the islands are entirely uninhabited. You told me you needed a place that means nothing to you, a place where you can be alone with your thoughts. The Hebrides would suit that.”

Much as the Engineer hates to admit it, this is worth considering. True, the weather will be hideous, but it will only match his mood. Part of him shrinks from exiling himself so far from the bustle of industry, but another part suspects it will do him good. Amidst such isolation, he may at last find the stillness he needs to hear the whispers of his gods. Perhaps, once he clears his head of the past year’s events, he may even find the courage to ask that most terrible, most important question.

Saying all this would give Mandus far too much satisfaction.

“Again you presume to know me, Mandus,” he says instead, “but I will consider it if you will get off of my bed.”

Mandus almost smiles, with his eyes if not with his mouth, and stays exactly where he is. “But I _do_ know you, little one. I know your needs, because I know the needs of children: amusement, love, and quiet places to calm themselves when they lose their heads.”

This elicits a glare. “What do I need with love, Mandus? I hardly know the meaning of the word.”

“That’s your trouble. You believe that the only true form of love is deliverance, and deliverance, to you, means death. Love is death, in your eyes. Conveniently for you, that makes the border with hate very blurry indeed.”

The Engineer reminds himself that Mandus’s calm sagacity, intolerable as it is, may well be a façade, and resists the urge to slap him.

He puts on a humorless smile. “If you think that I bear love to humanity, somewhere beneath my hate, then you are a fool.”

"Am I?” Mandus eyes him steadily. “I think we are more alike than you realize. What I did in Mexico and what you did on New Year’s Eve are the same. Two acts of deliverance, each containing both love and hate. The only difference between us was that hate was your primary fuel, and love was mine.”

“I am _nothing_ like you.”

“That isn’t what you said on New Year’s Eve. ‘ _You and I are one, we are the same, our souls are entangled’ –_ ”

At this, the Engineer gives Mandus a shove, forcing him to stand up from the bed. “You are the most insufferable man,” he hisses. “To think I saw promise in you!”

Mandus only shakes his head, almost chuckling. “You’re right, I am goading you, I admit. But I stand by all I’ve said.” Then he pauses and adds thoughtfully, “If circumstances had been kinder and you and I had ‘met’ as children, would we have been friends?”

The Engineer folds his arms. “No.”

“I think we might have been. I’m sure you would have terrorized anyone who tried to bully me at school.”

“And waste my energy?” the Engineer scoffs.

But in his heart, he thinks he _would_ have been Mandus’s protector. And that is comforting in the most supremely irritating way.

888

The last few days before Mandus’s voyage are inevitably difficult. His dreams increase in frequency and brutality. This makes the Engineer feel so ill in turn that they both give up trying to sleep and simply doze wherever they happen to collapse. Far from amplifying each other’s nightmares, they sleep more peacefully when they are in the same room. 

The phonograph helps to keep their dreams at bay, particularly the Beethoven sonata that so entrances the Engineer. Mandus wishes he could bring it with him to Mexico, but it’s too heavy to carry very far, and the damp heat might damage the mechanism.

Sometimes the Engineer plays the piano, hoping to soothe himself into sleep. He has more of a sensibility for the instrument than Mandus does, perhaps because the piano is a kind of machine, full of little levers and steel strings. He doesn’t play for Mandus’s sake, of course, but it helps Mandus to drift off all the same.

Then, on the night before Mandus’s departure, there is a rare winter lightning storm, with wind and sleet lashing the sky. Mandus wakes from an uneasy sleep to the sound of the window beside his bed rattling. The lights in the hallway buzz fitfully as he thinks of trying to get some more rest. Then all at once, they go out with a pop, leaving his bedroom in complete darkness.

At first he suspects a fuse may have blown, but then he remembers that the hallway lights shouldn’t have been on in the first place.

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and feels around on the night-table for his lantern (still where the Engineer left it). Having cranked it up, he crosses his room by the light of the narrow beam and steps into the hall.

Mandus has not been in a truly dark place since New Year’s Eve, and it sets his every nerve vibrating. The gallery is lined with windows, but the storm clouds have blocked most of the moonlight. In the wind they throw fitful, scudding shades of black and blacker across the floor. Dismantling traps by London lamplight was not nearly so unsettling. In this darkness, Mandus expects to hear unholy squeals or see something hunchbacked and monstrous shamble across his path. His eyes dart to and fro. He scans the gallery rail to his right, the door to the bath at the end of the corridor, his own door behind him and Lily’s next to it. All seems in order…

Then his eye falls on the window at the end of the hall. His heart nearly stops: a figure is curled on the window seat.

Terror sears through him with the next flash of lightning, leaving his blood boiling and his skin tingling with electricity. For one moment, his body and mind are fully united in their instinct to flee, eyes dilating, muscles tensing, thoughts racing. Then that moment passes, and he recognizes the dark silhouette in the window as the Engineer’s.

Mandus’s instincts hold him stock-still for a long moment before he can speak or approach. The Engineer keeps his eyes on the storm.

“Should you be sitting at the window?” Mandus asks when at last he finds his voice. His words emerge in a slightly higher, breathier register than usual. “The wind –”

“Why do you always scold me?” The Engineer leans his head against the glass, voice soft and weary. “There isn’t so very much wind.”

“What are you doing here at this hour, then?”

“Much the same as you, I imagine: seeking sleep.” Another bolt of lightning spears through the overcast sky, illuminating the clouds from within. The Engineer sighs. “I want it, Mandus. I want it so badly.”

Mandus recognizes the longing and hunger in his counterpart’s voice. He has heard those raw emotions before. He can guess that it isn’t merely the lightning that has drawn them out, but what the lightning represents: power, pure and unveiled.

_"Apocalypse” means “revelation,”_ he thinks vaguely. _To reveal. To lift the veil, the veil of the tabernacle, the veil of divinity. That’s what my Engineer sees tonight._

Venturing closer, Mandus lays his free hand on the Engineer’s shoulder. This earns him a flinch and a baleful look. “It isn’t yours to hold,” he murmurs. “Your engines shall have to do for as long as you remain human.”

The Engineer shrugs off Mandus’s hand. “Must you remind me of my fallen state?”

“I don’t do it to shame you, only to…well, to help you get accustomed to the idea, I suppose. You hurt. I can feel it.”

“And you believe I deserve whatever suffering has come to me.”

“That isn’t for me to judge.”

“But you _do_ judge, don’t you? On New Year’s Eve, you meant to kill me.”

“Only out of necessity. Had you not forced me to it, it would have remained for you and for God to decide.”

The Engineer turns away from the storm at last. A gust rattles the panes of glass in their metal frames. “Do you never doubt?” he demands. “Do you never question the choice you made that night?”

“Of course, sometimes, but not so often as I question the choice I made in Mexico. Or no, I don’t question that choice. I renounce it with all my heart, for all the good it does.”

_You would not be so sure if you could remember the things we saw_ , the Engineer thinks. But he has promised never to inflict those visions on anyone, not even Mandus, and to that he will hold.

“You know where I stand on the matter of your children, Mandus, and you shan’t change my mind,” he says instead.

“I don’t expect to. I only hope I can…reconcile with it, if such a thing is possible.” Mandus pauses. It leaves him trembling to think of what he must do in Mexico, what he might discover, what nightmares might come true. He swallows hard. “I hope you find what you seek as well. I hope it sets you at ease.”

The Engineer shakes his head, not quite believing what he hears. “After all we’ve been through, you would wish me well? You do amaze me,” he says dryly. “Do you aspire to sainthood?”

Mandus stares at him for a moment. He does not know whether that last question was malicious or amused or both.

Then slowly, almost in unison, wry smiles cross their lips.

Were they not so tired and anxious, they might have laughed.

888

The next day, Mandus boards a train to Southampton. Soon afterward, the Engineer plans his route from London to Oban and secures the various tickets.

With such trivialities do their pilgrimages begin.

_END ARC II_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the London Symphony Orchestra playing Mendelssohn's [Hebrides Overture.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdQyN7MYSN8)


	13. Pilgrimage

ARC III: LOOKING FOR THE GODS

February-March 1900

“ _It is wonderful how tragedy focuses the mind. What else was I to do, fall into grief, pine, and fade in my hopelessness? Why not then simply die in that jungle amongst those dead temples?_ ”

Oswald Mandus, 20 December 1899

* * *

12\. Pilgrimage

Spend nearly two weeks aboard a cramped, rattling, rocking steamship with nowhere to go and precious little amusement, and one learns very quickly whether one’s companions are tolerable. Therein lies Mandus’s test.

Since passenger liners almost never sail to Mexico, Mandus is traveling with a group of engineers and mechanics. They are helping to build branches of the British-owned railway between Veracruz and Mexico City. They are a bit of a rough bunch, but skilled of hand and well-educated in their trade. Most, like Mandus, are relatively young. All regard him with a certain aloofness at first, and admittedly, Mandus reciprocates. Associating with a different class is like encountering another species, however broad-minded one might be.

In the days when he ran a proper abattoir, Mandus was not unduly hard on his workers, nor did he think himself superior to them. His own ancestors, despite the fortune the Mandus family has since amassed, were middle-class at best. Perhaps that tempers his arrogance. He was, however, as willing as any manufacturer to exchange human hands for mechanical ones in the service of decreased cost and increased output.

In short, he was quite typical of his time and his class. He did not mistreat his workers, but nor did he love them. He did not, in fact, even know them particularly well.

That is not how he wants to manage his new operation. His wish, as the Engineer once said, is to turn pigs back into humans. He cannot do that if he sees them as little more than extensions of the machines. He must know their names, their dispositions, their strengths and weaknesses, their dreams and ambitions. He must know them as individuals. That means pushing past the ever-present barrier of class, with all its attendant restrictions.

If he can do that on this ship, he can do it at home.

The vessel itself is meant for cargo, not passengers. That means plain metal walls with exposed rivets, closet-like sleeping quarters just above the engines, and mattresses thinner than slices of cake Mandus has eaten at dinner parties. He composed all his business letters before leaving England, so his fellow passengers are his sole distraction aside from the few books he brought along. The weather often precludes the group from going up on deck, not that there would be much to see. Even so, they don’t speak much at first. They don’t quite know what to say to one another. No doubt the others wonder why Mandus is here. He’s hardly wearing his best, but he still stands out.

Then one night, sitting at the bare wooden table in the mess hall, Mandus proves he can hold his drink as well as any of his companions. Once the tradesmen no longer expect him to lecture on temperance, the ice thaws a bit.

Once they discover that Mandus is something of an engineer himself, they find common ground. After that, it isn’t long before they are having lively discussions on the history of the steam engine and the speed records set by locomotives around the world. Mandus soon notices that the men no longer mind their language in his presence, assured that he will not take offense.

These are the first people Mandus has really spoken to, save for the Engineer. Despite his successes, he finds it difficult. The tradesmen exist beyond the borders of New Year’s Eve. Mandus is keenly, horribly aware that no matter how much he may have in common with his companions, he is _not_ like them. They have their own troubles, of course, but they do not live with blood on their hands or insanity at their heels. They have not seen the future. They have not held the fate of the world in their palms.

He often finds himself remembering this partway through a formerly enjoyable conversation, and his smiles die on his lips. He spends the rest of such evenings lost in regrets while his companions’ words wash over him.

All this comes to a head on the anniversary of his children’s deaths. He spends much of the day in his bunk, having no appetite. He wishes he could sleep and wake up tomorrow, but this would be a terrible betrayal. Today of all days, he ought to suffer.

One of his bunkmates, a young Mancunian named Josiah Andrews with faint freckles and curly auburn hair, encourages him to eat and drink. Mandus gives no word. He cannot speak, cannot move. If he does, all the grief will spill out of him like innards and leave him empty.

That night, he lies awake listening to the throb of the engines beneath him. Per the Engineer’s suggestion, his old, battered lantern hangs from a beam above his berth. He tries to take courage from this symbol of how much he has survived since New Year’s Eve. 

He is just beginning to wonder if he is going to sleep at all tonight when Andrews’ head appears at the top of the ladder to Mandus’s bunk.

The young man wastes no words. “What’s your business in Mexico?” he asks. Impudent, but well-meant.

At first, Mandus says nothing, but then he decides that this man’s kindness deserves courtesy in return. He settles on a fragment of the truth.

“I came to Mexico on an expedition this time last year. My young sons…both died there. A year ago to the day.”

Mandus cannot see Andrews’ face in the dark, nor does Andrews ask for clarification. No doubt he is thinking of malaria, bad water, or perhaps an animal attack.

_Do not say it wasn’t my fault. Please._

_"_ You’re going back to say goodbye?” Andrews asks instead.

There is so much more Mandus wants to say, and cannot. Can never. He nods, hand over his eyes.

After a moment, Andrews sighs. “I’m sorry for that, sir. I hope you…find what you came here for.”

Simple words, but so genuinely spoken that they lack the hollow ring of platitudes. Mandus cannot say so, but he is grateful for the compassion of this near stranger. He wonders if Andrews, too, has lost someone dear to him. Does the manner of the loss make any difference, Mandus wonders? Are the pain and the emptiness always the same?

Mandus feels a pressure on his arm, then hears Andrews climb back down.

Sometime after that, Mandus finds sleep. Tonight of all nights he does not dream.

The voyage does not exactly become easier once the terrible anniversary has passed, but it does seem to go faster. It’s as if an inexorable force is pulling the ship onward, heedless of the winter weather, bearing Mandus closer and closer to that which he must – but cannot – face. He becomes restless, trapped, unable to turn back and unable to move on.

Before he knows it, the ship is steaming into Veracruz. It passes the mysterious tree-studded length of the Isla de Sacrificios, then the imposing crenellated walls and watchtowers of San Juan de Ulúa, where Hernán Cortés once met with the emissaries of Montezuma. Beyond that, the docks. Further still, the lattice of flat-roofed buildings, church bell towers, and shaded arcades that is Veracruz.

Mandus knows all this is real by the salt breeze spraying across his face. He finds himself wishing desperately that the Engineer were here. Mandus has sensed nothing of him, though he must already have been in the Hebrides for some time. For a distraction, he tries to imagine the route the Engineer would have taken: leaving behind the coffered ceiling and elegant double staircase of Euston Station; passing through miles and miles of dormant fields, stone cottages, and little fenced lanes in the Cotswolds, then the gently rolling hills of the Midlands. Up around Merseyside, then between the dales of Yorkshire and the hill-encircled waters of the Lake District. Skirting the crags of the Pennines and into the moors and fells of the Scottish uplands. From Glasgow Central Station on to the docks of Oban, and from there a ferry to whichever of the Hebridean isles the Engineer has chosen –

The gangplank thumps down, and Mandus’s imagined map dissolves. Veracruz returns, along with warm humidity and the smells of fish, animal dung, and humanity. For all Britain’s talk of global preeminence, Mandus thinks parts of London smell worse.

He meets Andrews’ sympathetic gaze. Mandus knows how he must look, pale and shadow-eyed, but there is no going back now. If he does not do this, he will lose his mind, and then he will die.

He catches the glint of a cross atop a church somewhere in the city and hopes God is watching, whatever that might mean.

Time to begin.

888

In Oban, the Engineer convinced a trawler captain to take him to an uninhabited Hebridean isle. The man narrowed his eyes and warned that he likely wouldn’t be back that way for near a month. No doubt he thought the Engineer quite mad, or perhaps the latest victim of some peculiar upper-class fad. Perhaps he _is_ mad. Still, with the compound to sustain him, he does not need to eat much; his provisions will last. If worst comes to worst, he can boil seawater.

At that time, he was simply relieved that his travels were over. The journey from London to Glasgow took the better part of twenty-four hours, with multiple changes of train. It was the Engineer’s first time out of the house, and he was unprepared for the crowds. Being among so many other people made him feel filthy. By the time he got off the platform at Euston Station and into his compartment, he was shaking and almost ill. He quickly locked the door.

He spent much of his time dozing, taking little from the trolley, preparing himself to face the next station full of pigs. He longed for the quiet and isolation of the Hebrides. Now that he’s here, he is beginning to regret his hastiness.

He has been on his island for a week and a half, having left several days after Mandus. In that time, it has snowed, rained, or both nearly every day. He was fortunate enough to find shelter – a travelers’ hut the Scots call a bothy – at the top of the first hill he climbed. It obviously predates the island’s abandonment, and it’s rather the worse for wear. There are gaps in the unmortared stone walls, and the roof leaks in places. He’s learned to store his kindling and supplies in a dry corner, and to sleep there, too, his head on his pack. His body stabilizes in the cold, but he hates it, and the damp even more so. It makes him feel unwholesomely shivery.

The island itself possesses a sort of bleak beauty. The Engineer explores what he can in between showers, staying mostly to the southern half where he disembarked. He makes sketches when the weather will allow it to give his hands something to do. Some days he just walks the cliffs and valleys and moors, not looking for anything in particular. The crunch of his feet on the pebbles and dry winter grass blots out his thoughts. He suspects this place will be full of flowers come spring, the hillsides dotted with heather, harebells, and orchids.

Other times, he goes in search of interesting sites, clues to his predicament. One rare clear night, he climbs a hill to a ring of standing stones. Although they are spotted with lichen, they stand as fixed and staid as they have for ages. The moonlight throws their shadows onto the frosty ground, precise and black like the inscriptions of a giant hand. If there is a message, the Engineer cannot read it. On a different day, he wanders into a valley and finds the entrance to a cave, a black hole in which his lantern-beam falters. He does not venture inside, but he does mark the location of the freshwater spring nearby. Another time, he walks along the beach. Quetzalcoatl’s winds whisper mournfully through the rock arches. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that this most benevolent of the Mexican gods is grieving for him.

He finds a wrecked boat on the beach, lodged between some boulders in the shallows. Its anchor chain is extruded, bleeding rust into the water. It saddens the Engineer to see such a symbol of enterprise and industry lying broken and abandoned. At the same time, he finds it grimly symbolic: he too is a broken machine, forsaken and taking on water.

The crew must have escaped the vessel and been rescued, or else they perished at sea, for the Engineer finds no human remains on board. He does, however, uncover a cache of paint cans. The speckles on the sides and lids glow softly blue-green in the shadows belowdecks. He has never seen such a thing before, and he can find no ship’s manifest to explain it. He likes the color, though: it reminds him of the compound. He resolves to come back for the paint another time.

Perhaps he can use it to make his mark on this island. He should at least give the place a name in the meantime. Perhaps something with a Gaelic ring like “Falleith,” or else something excessively English like “Clapbridgestone-on-Sea.” Or perhaps something in the language of his gods.

His gods…are they here? If they are, he can’t feel it, not even when he squeezes his pig-faced pendant so hard the edges dig into his hand.

The gods’ presence is elusive, but Mandus’s, unfortunately, is not. It seems that distance does not preclude the two men from exchanging strong emotions. The Engineer feels a sudden lethargy steal over him one afternoon, and he realizes that today Edwin and Enoch Mandus have been dead for a year, and their father is plainly despondent. The feeling fades by the next day, however. The Engineer hopes that will be the end of it.

Not so. A week and a half after his arrival, he wakes in the dead of night with his stomach roiling: a sign that Mandus has had a particularly vicious nightmare. More than that, a presence is prodding at his mind like a feather, and thoughts not his own skimming the surface of his consciousness. He recognizes at once that Mandus is the source.

Groaning, the Engineer rolls over in the dark of the bothy. He breathes in the earthy scent of wet stone and listens to the howling wind, wondering how he will get back to sleep again. His muscles are tight, as always, from lying on the ground. Reluctantly, he focuses his tired thoughts towards his maker, as if Mandus were sitting with him:

_What is it this time? Why are you in my mind?_

The response is not exactly a voice. The Engineer senses rather than hears Mandus’s low, melancholy tones. His thoughts are fearful and full of grief. They almost hurt. The Engineer does not like this one bit.

_Did I wake you?_ Mandus asks. _You sound – well, not “sound,” I suppose – you seem tired._

_It_ is _the middle of the night._

_Really? But it’s only…well, of course, I’d forgotten you were on another continent._

_Mandus, is there a reason for this? I feel absolutely wretched, and it’s because of you._

_S_ heepishness tinges Mandus’s horror. _I…I had a dream_ –

_You really must learn to manage your nightmares. I am not your keeper._

_I had a dream that I split apart, and death and rot spilled from my body instead of blood. I could hear the screams of all the people we’ve killed. I could still hear them when I woke, still smell it, still feel the pain…_

Mandus’s thoughts trail off.

Irritated and fatigued, the Engineer’s brittle patience snaps. _Oh, yes? What would you have me tell you, Mandus?_ he says in the mental equivalent of a bark. _I dream too, you know. I dream of young men lying dead in the mud and a hundred thousand people disappearing in a flash of light, and I can feel the heat on my face when I wake. You dream of death? So do I, but I don’t lay it on your shoulders._

There is a long pause. The Engineer can still feel Mandus on the edge of his consciousness, but the man has slunk away like a wounded animal.

… _Of course. I’m sorry for troubling you._

The Engineer says nothing. He’s hardly in a better state than Mandus, trembling and blinking back frightened tears. He cannot escape his dreams or his thoughts of the future, but he wishes, how he wishes he could. Why did he come to this forsaken place anyway? What sort of peace did he expect to find here? Walking the cliffs and the beaches will not help him face the knowledge that he isn’t –

His mind shies from that thought, as always. For a distraction, he returns his focus to Mandus’s present circumstances. As he concentrates, vague images fill his awareness: impressions of whitewashed walls, a crucifix, a colorful woven rug, rough-hewn furniture.

_Wait_ , he thinks. _Where are you?_

Mandus’s voice returns hesitantly, _An inn in Veracruz. I’m sure we went on to Papantla last time, but that’s a hundred and fifty miles from here, and I need rest. It’ll be several more days in the back of a cart before I find what I seek. I am already so weary of travel._

Against his better judgment, the Engineer’s curiosity is piqued. Something about this doesn’t seem right.

_Papantla? Are you sure?_ he asks. _In my memory, the Temple of the Stone Moon is_ … He searches for the right word. … _hidden_. _Just as my temple is hidden, beneath London yet not beneath London, behind a door that only my – our – souls can unlock. The stone egg would not simply have been left in the jungle for any villager to stumble over._

_But we did go to Papantla, I remember. My guide knew the temple –_

_He knew of_ a _temple that matched the description in your great-uncle’s travel diaries. There are ruins all over Mexico. Your guide knew you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, and he wanted to be paid. He took you to a temple near Papantla, but not to the Temple of the Stone Moon. No guide could have brought you to such a place._

_He was with us all the while –_

_Was he? Are you sure of that, Mandus?_

Mandus is silent for a moment. _No, I can’t say I am. Your suspicions are well-founded, but Papantla is the only name I have. I must start there._

The Engineer considers all this once more. The events of his birth are blurred and jumbled in his mind, but he remembers stillness, time itself hanging suspended, a weight of the forgotten. No, that was no ordinary place. He isn’t sure, in fact, how Mandus found it the first time, much less how he will find it again.

_Well, don’t lose yourself along the way, or catch something foul_ , he thinks. _I won’t be able to save you this time._

He feels Mandus smirk dryly. _You wouldn’t even if you could._

_I would, if only to keep myself alive._ A pause, and then, before the Engineer can guard his thoughts, _I doubt your soul is full of rot and death, Mandus. If it were, you would be dead yourself. The gods have no patience for lost causes._

Something like a bitter laugh. _Then why send me such dreams? To punish me?_

_You’re doing a fine job of that on your own – so fine, in fact, that it makes me ill. I’ll thank you to keep your nightmares in hand. This infernal wind is difficult enough to ignore._

Mandus does not rise to the Engineer’s jibes. _Will you show me your island?_

_It’s dark, Mandus._

_Tomorrow, then?_

_If you let me sleep, lest I stumble off a cliff in my exhaustion._

Mandus scoffs at these dramatics. _Of course. Goodnight, little one._

_I am not little._

Left alone with his own thoughts, the Engineer is suddenly frustrated. He sits up, running his hands through his hair.

Again! Mandus woke him in the middle of the night, and the Engineer offered his enemy advice and encouragement! What is happening? It’s as if he hardly knows himself anymore.

Well, of course not. He knows a god, and he isn’t –

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of you have played Dear Esther, the Engineer's island is going to start looking very familiar.


	14. Guide

13\. Guide

After disembarking in Veracruz, the engineers take Mandus as far as the Plaza de las Armas in the city center before going their separate ways. By this time, evening is falling and Mandus is too tired and anxious to take in any of the sights, sounds, and smells around him. He can think only of finding a place to lay his head and forget his troubles for a while.

Andrews and his companions name several nearby inns before saying their goodbyes. Mandus clasps Andrews’ hand and says, “Come and see me if you’re ever in London. I’ll give you supper.”

Andrews shakes his head, smiling in gentle disbelief. “You’re a strange one, sir, and no mistake,” he says warmly. “I’ve never known a gent like you. You’ll do well in your new business venture, I should wager…and with the other thing, too.”

“I do hope so,” Mandus says fervently. “Thank you, Andrews, and godspeed.”

Andrews tips his cap. “And you, sir.”

Then he is gone, along with his companions, and so is Mandus’s only link with England.

He has traveled abroad many times. This is hardly new to him, yet he suddenly feels very alone and overwhelmed by the music, dancing, laughing, and shouting all around him. It’s all he can do to find an inn nearby. He doesn’t know if it is one of the establishments his fellow travelers recommended. All the rectangular buildings and arcades and pastel stucco walls look the same to him.

Eventually, he wanders into an establishment, a simple place of whitewashed stone and wooden beams, but quite clean. The front room is lit by a mixture of oil lamps and flickering candles, casting amber and shadow over the bar and scattered tables. All are empty. The guests, Mandus supposes, are enjoying themselves in the plaza.

At the bar, Mandus settles things with the innkeeper, a young woman named Amaya who is unexpectedly fluent in English. She speaks with hardly any accent as she serves him something white and viscous in a green blown-glass tumbler.

“This is not a _pulquería_ , so the drink is not the finest,” she says apologetically.

“I assure you I won’t be able to tell,” Mandus returns. He raises his glass to Amaya and takes a sip of what she calls pulque. It’s some sort of fermented drink, sour and yeasty. At first he doesn’t care for it at all, but by the end of the glass he has learned to appreciate the taste. It doesn’t seem any stronger than beer, and his mind remains clear. When he tries to stand, however, he finds his legs rather unsteady.

Amaya leads him up to his room. Mandus apologizes all the while, assuring her he is not usually prone to drunkenness; it must be because he hasn’t eaten much recently. She just laughs and lets him alone.

That night, he has the terrible dream which compels him to seek comfort from the Engineer, and he does not feel much better in the morning. Still, his mind is alert enough now to take in his surroundings, so he makes his way downstairs to the main room. The dining area is as neat and as empty as it was last night: a bit of sandy dirt strewn over the floor, chairs pushed in at the round tables, trimmed wicks in the lamps. He wonders if he’s missed breakfast and the guests have already left for the day.

Standing beneath the awning outside, he takes in the square for the first time. The Plaza de las Armas is a rather elegant place, dotted with trees, unpaved in the center but lined with a mosaic of black and white tiles. On one side is the Municipal Palace, a long ivory building with two levels of arcaded galleries and a sculpted watchtower at one end. On the other is a church, brilliantly white in the morning sun, tiled cupola shining. He catches the glint of bells from the arched openings in the tower behind.

The plaza is not nearly as busy as it was last night, but already burro carts are trundling across it, vendors are setting up stalls to hawk cigars and every kind of trinket, and residents are unfolding trestle tables to play dominoes. The people seem to represent a wide range of classes. Some of the men wear loose white shirts and trousers with wide-brimmed hats; others are almost indistinguishable from Englishmen of business; still others wear heavily embroidered jackets fit for a ballroom. The women are just as varied. Some are in silks with lace veils perched high on their heads; others wear simple but colorful tunics and skirts, with striped shawls wrapped around their heads to keep off the sun. Some are dark, some tanned, some nearly as fair as Mandus.

He remembers thinking, last time he was here, that if he allowed himself to get used to the smells and colors and the foreign language, this plaza might not seem so different from Trafalgar Square. He feels the same way now. It soothes him somewhat.

Turning around and stepping back into the inn, he finds Amaya sweeping the floor. Only now in the plain light of day does he get a good look at her. Like many in this country, she has nut-brown skin and black hair, pinned up behind her head with a clip shaped like a flower. Soft wisps frame a young, fine-featured face and intelligent eyes. Her colorful skirts, purple with bands of yellow and green near the hem, fall wide, but the sash bound above her waist indicates a slight figure. The sleeves of her simple white blouse bare strong but slender arms.

She puts up her broom and wishes Mandus good morning when she sees him, her slight accent liquid and pleasing. “Did I ask you, _señor_ ,” she says, “what brings you so far from home?”

Mandus is grateful to have had the long voyage to practice telling his story. “I came to see some curious Aztec ruins,” he says smoothly, “near Papantla. Perhaps you know them.”

Amaya pulls out a chair at one of the empty tables, gesturing for Mandus to sit as well. “El Tajín is near Papantla, but it is Totonac, not Mexica.” She pronounces this last word, which Mandus assumes is a name for the Aztecs, as “meh- _shee_ -kah,” in a different accent. “Do you know the name of the place you came to see?”

“The Temple of the Stone Moon.” How could he forget?

The effect of these words upon Amaya is immediate. Her placid demeanor dissipates in a wink, and she goes rigid, eyes narrowing a bit. “Tlapani,” she murmurs, again in that other accent. “How do you know this place?”

Mandus hesitates for a moment, torn between safeguarding his secrets and unburdening himself to someone who just might understand. It would be too much to hope that an innkeeper he stumbled upon on his first night in Veracruz might not think him mad, and yet…

He masters himself with a considerable effort. He must be cautious. The guide he hired last year claimed to know the temple as well, perhaps dishonestly. Amaya might be the same.

“My great-uncle wrote of it in one of his travel diaries,” he says. Surely there is no harm in saying that. “‘ _Find the Temple of the Stone Moon, and the world will nevermore be hungry, and neither shall you._ ’ I was there February last.”

Amaya shakes her head a little. “You do not understand, _señor_. Tlapani cannot be found. It _finds_.”

"But I’m sure I was there.” Mandus considers this young woman again, wondering how much she knows. “That name you use, what does it mean?”

“It is Nahuatl. It means ‘splits’ or ‘breaks apart.’ Like pottery or an eggshell.”

Mandus knows his shock must be plain on his face _._ How many times did the Engineer speak of breaking the egg of the world? And did Mandus’s soul not split apart in that place? It cannot be a coincidence that Amaya knows the temple by such a name.

“I…brought something back,” Mandus says slowly. “A stone, perfectly round, pale blue.” That doesn’t seem strange, does it? Many wealthy people go treasure-hunting.

But Amaya is now fully alert, a mix of confusion and awe in her face. “You brought it back?” she says sharply. “And the guardian did not come?”

Mandus has seen this word in his great-uncle’s writings: a Shadow that devours those who take an Orb from its proper place. He was so ill when he returned from Mexico, however, that it was months before he could truly understand what he brought back with him, much less its dreadful guardian. No doubt the Engineer was not so ignorant – and nor, it seems, is Amaya.

“Not that I know of,” he says carefully. 

“You would know. You would be dead.”

Suddenly, he can no longer restrain himself. Desperate for answers, he very nearly clasps Amaya’s hands. “Then why aren’t I, Amaya? If you know anything about that stone or why it might have…chosen me, I beg you to tell me. I’m so lost in all this.”

Amaya looks around the room surreptitiously, but it is still empty. It only strikes Mandus now how strange this young woman is – how strange it is that they happened to cross paths in an empty inn on a busy town square. Is any of this mere chance? Is his life being manipulated yet again by something beyond his understanding?

Amaya’s dark eyes hold his own. “The stone egg does not choose,” she says. “It is not alive, it does not think, it is not _teotl –_ ”

“ _Teotl_?”

“A god. The stone egg is not good or evil; it only _is_. But it senses souls, in some simple way, and it can’t be used by the weak. It breaks if it is taken, and the guardian comes for the thief. If you were spared, then you were strong enough to hold it.”

_Well, in for a penny, in for a pound_ , Mandus thinks. He’s said this much; why not say it all? If this woman is not what she seems, he need never see her again.

“ _I_ didn’t take it, or use it, exactly,” he begins. This is the first time he’s put the absurdity of last year into words, and he finds it difficult. “It showed me terrible visions of the future, and the knowledge was…unbearable. I felt my very soul splitting in two. It awakened some part of me I hadn’t known before, gave him a separate life. This…twin…used the Orb, for a time. It broke a month or so ago – or no, not broke; there were no pieces. It dissolved. Disappeared.”

“Then your twin had a bond with the stone, until he became too weak. That bond must have protected him from the guardian, even after it was broken.”

“You say the stone is not a god, but he certainly seemed to think it was. He’s developed a great affinity for the deities of this country as well. Considers himself one of them, in fact.”

Mandus knows he is being reckless, but it feels so, so wonderful, lifts such a weight, to say these things to someone who understands. This is the confession he can never make to anyone else.

Again Amaya fixes him with her steady, dark gaze. “The stone egg is not _teotl_ ,” she says firmly, as if this is very important and fundamental. “It may _sound_ like _teotl_ , if that is what a man wishes to hear.”

So, having borne witness to a horrific future, the Engineer reached out for power and found it in the stone egg. He took this as a sign of his divine mandate. Newborn and unknowing and terrified, his mind buckled under the weight of what he had seen. A voice within him cried out, _Enough fear! You have been chosen to stop this. You are a god, or you will be._ That misplaced assurance granted him enough strength to keep hold of the Orb.

Mandus nods slowly. “That does make sense.” Part of him is still praying this isn’t a dream, or a cruel ruse.

As Amaya scrutinizes his face, Mandus has the uncomfortable sensation that she is looking right through him. “What is his name, your twin?”

“He calls himself the Engineer. He looks just like me, but harder somehow.”

“ _El Ingeniero_.” Amaya smiles softly. “Does he still wish to become _teotl_?”

“Oh, yes. He doesn’t know what he is if not… _teotl_.” That last consonant pairing, an almost voiceless stop, is impossible for Mandus to reproduce. It feels as if he must swallow his tongue. “He is in the Hebrides at the moment – islands off of Scotland – looking for answers.”

Amaya considers all this for a moment. Then she nods and stands up with a scrape of her chair. “I will go with you to Tlapani,” she says, “and help you find what you are looking for. For now, rest a bit more, _señor_. You’ve had such a long journey. I will bring you up some food later, if you wish.”

Mandus realizes just then that he never told Amaya where he is from. He supposes she can tell from his accent, especially if she’s known other British railway engineers.

He also realizes he never told her why he seeks the Temple of the Stone Moon. He has the bizarre sense that she knows already – that she knew, in fact, the answers to all the questions she asked him, and her curiosity was simply an act. And how is it that she is so familiar with the Orb?

Mandus keeps all these things to himself. He desperately needs a guide, and Amaya is better than he’d hoped for, even if there is something odd about her.

“I would be grateful, ma’am,” he says as Amaya leads him to the narrow wooden stairs. “I take it we are not going to Papantla?”

Amaya smiles strangely. “We could, but why should we?”

Whatever this means, Mandus never quite finds out. Amaya is correct: his long journey and his nightmares are taking their toll. He finds himself asleep soon after he lies down in bed, still fully clothed.

When he wakes, he is in the jungle.

888

No such miracles have come to the Engineer. His time in the Hebrides has thus far been consumed with one discomfort after another: trying to keep his supplies dry and ignore the foul weather; nightmares; sleeping on a dirt floor. He doesn’t know why he came to this place, really, or what he expected to find.

Many nights, he weeps softly into his arms as he falls asleep. He feels utterly abandoned.

The day after Mandus wakes him, he goes to the spring near the cave mouth to wash as best he can. As always, there’s absolutely no one here to see, but he himself can’t bear to look at his human body. The cold water offers another excellent inducement not to take too long.

It’s only when he is dressed and wringing out his hair (it already needs cutting again) that the sun breaks through the clouds to the northeast and reveals something he has never noticed before. There is a tall, slender metal lattice just visible atop a cliff. It looks utterly incongruous, an object from another place and time, and yet there is a curious sense of permanence about it. He can easily imagine that it has always stood there on its clifftop and always will, like the standing stones. He decides it must be a watchtower for fires. It could hardly be anything else, but…who would build a fire tower on an uninhabited island?

He doesn’t like it at all. Its strangeness is a lure, as if it holds some significance for him. It fills him with an inexplicable dread.

He turns his back on it and looks accusingly heavenward. _This is not what I meant when I asked you for a sign._

Another puzzle. More questions than answers; more divine silence.

In defiance of the fire tower, he turns around and walks down to the beach. Soon the sun retreats again and leaves him petulantly skipping stones under a gray sky.

From the boulder on which he is perched, he can see his reflection in the troubled surface of the sea. How very like Mandus he looks, even with his sharper features and too-long hair.

Suddenly filled with fury, he throws a pebble directly at his reflection, shattering the image into ripples. Whatever he becomes now, he will not be Oswald Mandus: this he swears. He slits his palm with the obsidian dagger he keeps on a cord around his neck and sprinkles his blue blood over the rocks to seal this vow.

This is not the prescribed method of bloodletting, but he isn’t so fond of his gods that he would suffer to pierce his tongue with maguey thorns.

Funny that he should be willing to kill for them, but not to undergo a moment of pain. Or perhaps it wasn’t really the gods to whom he sacrificed all those people last year.

"What do you want from me?” he calls out over the increasing wind. “Why do you not answer?”

As usual, there is no response. None that he can understand, at any rate.

As he prepares to wander elsewhere, he catches a glimpse of his reflection again, and his thoughts turn back to Mandus. Where _is_ the man, now that he thinks of it? Last night, he asked to see the Engineer’s island, but he hasn’t made any contact since.

He stops where he stands, reaching out with his mind. Mandus is most certainly alive; the Engineer can sense that much, but he cannot discern Mandus’s surroundings no matter how he concentrates. It’s as if the man is suspended in some isolated, private place, entirely cut off from the ordinary world. He doesn’t seem to be in distress or danger, but even so…it’s disconcerting.

_Why should I care?_ he thinks, scowling at the horizon. _If Mandus is not in imminent danger, what business is it of mine where he is now?_

But it _does_ bother him. Perhaps it is because the Engineer has been more or less cut off from a part of himself.

That would mean he needs Mandus, at least somewhat. Not an encouraging thought.

He has reached the wrecked boat now, and he remembers the glowing paint: another strange object that, like the fire tower, nevertheless seems to belong. He picks up a can and sets off back to the bothy.

Perhaps he will find a stretch of rock and paint it over with obscure mechanical diagrams and Aztec iconography. Let the people of the far future think that whoever lived on this island worshipped machinery. They would not be entirely wrong.

The far future… That thought reminds him of his failure, and the smile fades from his lips. There oughtn’t to _be_ a future at all, much less a distant one.

He pauses and leans on a rock arch, suddenly overcome with despair. Gods, what _is_ he? 

Quetzalcoatl’s wind blows, but he cannot understand.


	15. Dreams and Nightmares

14\. Dreams and Nightmares

Mandus can remember falling asleep, yet there is no slow awakening, no gradual dispersal of fog. He simply regains consciousness in an entirely new place, fully alert but with no idea of how he came to be here.

He is sitting on the forest floor, surrounded by lush vegetation composed of every shade of green. Vines wrap around tree trunks; plants and flowers spread their limbs seeking to catch light from above. Animal voices fill the air with a disorderly chorus of squawks, hoots, whistles, buzzes, and deep-throated rumbles, but none of the singers can be seen.

That is, until his eye falls on Amaya, sitting a few feet from him with a jaguar sprawled beside her.

Mandus scrambles backward, reaching for a rifle that is not there. His back strikes a tree.

“It’s all right,” Amaya smiles gently. She is stroking the jaguar’s head, and it is rumbling like an engine coming up to full steam. “This one is a friend. You can touch him if you like.”

"No, I think not,” Mandus manages to stammer. “Where is this place? How have you brought us here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Amaya says. She lifts her hand and the jaguar rises and pads off into the jungle. “It is everywhere and nowhere, within and without. You _do_ seek Tlapani, do you not?”

With the jaguar gone, Mandus finds the nerve to uncurl himself from the base of the towering tree, but he does not move any closer to Amaya. Mandus is justifiably wary of the supernatural, and this woman shows every sign of being the latest in a long series of impossibilities.

“What are you?” he demands. “Do you serve the stone?”

“No.” Amaya’s smile vanishes, but she does not elaborate.

“Is this some sort of…kidnapping?”

“Of course not. I told you that Tlapani cannot be found; it must find _you_. That would be true if you were alone, but I have…keys.”

Mandus suddenly remembers what the Engineer said about his own temple existing in a halfway place whose door unlocks only at the touch of his soul. On New Year’s Eve, Mandus forced that door open by overstimulating its lock, the heart, with electricity. But if he had had the knowledge, could he have simply willed the heart to respond? Could he have transported himself into the underground temple using his own soul as the key? Has Amaya done something similar?

He takes a breath, lets it out hard. “Keys.”

Amaya nods. “Tlapani would have found you eventually – I believe it calls to you – but this way is quicker.”

"What qualifies you to bear the keys, if you don’t serve the Orb? How do you know of it in the first place?”

"How do _you_?” Amaya challenges.

Mandus blinks, taken aback. “I came across it in my great-uncle’s writings.”

“And how did _he_ know of it?”

“I…I’m not sure. Explorations, I suppose, into the strangest corners of the world, forays into mysticism and the occult. Was it the same for you?”

Amaya just smiles and stands up, holding out a hand to pull Mandus to his feet. “The stone egg has nothing to do with my knowing this place,” she says, and leaves it at that. “Come, we must walk.”

Mandus almost snorts in disbelief. “You can spirit me away to secret places no one else can find, but you can’t bring me to the base of the temple?”

“You will be grateful I gave you time to prepare.”

Again Mandus recalls that he has not told Amaya his reasons for going to the pyramid – but that hardly seems to matter anymore. The woman is right: he _isn’t_ ready to face what awaits him there, and he isn’t sure any amount of preparation would ever be enough.

888

The Engineer spends much of that evening considering his gods and how he came to keep them. 

He did not choose them – not that he can remember. He thought at first that the Orb genuinely spoke for them, calling upon him to prove his worth and join his fellow deities, but now he isn’t sure. Perhaps the stone egg simply adopted the personae of the Mexican _teteoh_ , and his soul, newborn and suggestible, heard divinity in its wordless voice.

He supposes that if he never chose the _teteoh_ , and was never chosen by them, then he need not continue to worship them. Surely faith of his choosing would be more pleasing to any deity than faith thrust upon him. But what else is there? He understands his gods, with all their power and passion and fallibility. Yes, they created and destroyed the world four times over, but they always adapted and regained control. They shed their blood to set the sun moving across the sky. The deity professed by most of Europe is too distant, and backwards to boot. Humanity sins and God sacrifices his own son? Where is the sense in that?

The Engineer does not believe perfection is essential to godhood, nor did he much care to be perfect in his own divinity. What he truly wanted was control, power, agency in the face of the coming horrors. The _teteoh_ had all those things. Certainly they faced adversity, yet they created a world and imbued every corner of it with their essence. Their stories gave the Engineer hope of doing something grand and significant despite his faults.

That sort of thinking tempts him to revive his plan for salvation – but he cannot, of course. The Orb is gone, and with it his source of power. He is no longer strong enough to wield it. Perhaps he only could have been so in his earliest days: naïve and utterly self-assured, knowing nothing but his own godhood, embracing simple, beautiful destruction.

Like knocking down a tower of blocks. If you don’t like it, start again.

He looks up from the flint he is striking over a pile of kindling just outside the bothy. That last thought didn’t feel like his own. At first he thinks Mandus may be speaking to him at last, but no, it’s as if he has merely inherited one of his maker’s thoughts secondhand.

The Engineer has inherited everything from Mandus secondhand, really. Again he promises himself that this will no longer be so, no matter the results of his pilgrimage.

Thinking of Mandus, he decides to try to contact his maker one last time before settling down for the night. He sparks his kindling, blows on it gently to coax the fire into life, then leans back against the wall of the bothy to concentrate.

Mandus’s presence comes quickly into focus. Immediately afterward, a wave of unease tinged with fear washes over the Engineer. Something, as he suspected earlier, is wrong, and he still can’t discern Mandus’s location.

Cautiously, he casts his thoughts into the ether. _Mandus? Where are you? I can’t see you._

_Oh, thank God!_ Mandus’s thought-voice is soaked in relief so profound that it fills the Engineer with a warm buzzing. _I thought of contacting you, but I didn’t think I would get through… I lay down for a rest at an inn in Veracruz, and when I woke I was in the jungle._

The Engineer feels his eyebrows lift in surprise. _Where?_

_I don’t know where!_ This with irritation. _The innkeeper seems to have brought me here somehow, but I can’t recall a journey. She can’t possibly have drugged me. I had nothing to eat this morning, and the pulque was last night._

_She gave you pulque?_ the Engineer says sharply.

It might be nothing, of course: pulque is a common enough drink in Mexico. Its origins, however, are divine: a gift from the gods to make the people dance and sing.

_Yes, but only one glass, and I was perfectly clear-headed this morning._

_This innkeeper, what is her name?_

_Amaya._

The Engineer murmurs this name several times. Amaya…pulque… Amaya shares part of her name with Mayahuel, the young and beautiful goddess of maguey. Her star-demon grandmother punished her for eloping with Quetzalcoatl by turning her into the maguey plant, from which pulque is made. It’s farfetched, but if this innkeeper did transport Mandus into the jungle by some strange power, and if she can indeed access the Temple of the Stone Moon of her own volition, then she could be…

He tries to swallow down the implications. _Does she seem…ordinary, aside from the obvious?_

_No, not at all. She knows everything about the Orb, more than we ever did. She claims to have some sort of key to the temple. It reminds me of what you said about our souls being the key to your altar at home. Either she’s mad, and I should fear for my life, or she’s every bit as strange and powerful as that stone. Perhaps more so._

Mandus’s thoughts begin to blur as the Engineer’s concentration slips. He knows it’s ridiculous to think that Mandus has attracted Mayahuel’s favor because an innkeeper named Amaya served him pulque, but… But she knows the stone egg, and she has, it seems, brought Mandus to a place that cannot be found with a wave of her hand.

The Engineer’s heart skips several uncomfortable beats, and he feels a lump rise in his throat. If this is Mayahuel, then the Engineer’s gods have deemed him so unworthy that they would rather aid an unbeliever than one of their own children.

Mandus has stolen the Engineer’s godhood and his gods. Mandus receives miracles while the Engineer languishes at the back of beyond, in the wet and the cold, consumed by a daily struggle with dirt and misery, without a single divine word.

He is, as Mandus once said, a mere shadow. Abandoned. Worthless. Banished by the sun.

The Engineer can feel himself sinking deeper and deeper into self-pity, but he doesn’t do a thing to stop it. It’s a release, and it isn’t as if he has any dignity left to lose. He puts his head on his knees, pulls himself into a ball, and watches from the corners of his eyes as snow settles in his black hair. His fire can go out for all he cares.

_Are you there, little one?_ From the faint concern in his thoughts, Mandus must be able to sense the Engineer’s distress.

_Leave me alone. I am not little._

Even his mind-voice is querulous, giving the lie to his words.

Suddenly, he can feel the pull of the fire tower again, like an unseen eye at his back. He refuses to turn and look in its direction. If his gods don’t want him, he doesn’t want them either.

He tucks his limbs tighter.

This may all seem very irrational in the morning, in which case Mandus will scold him for it in his insufferably gentle way.

888

The further Mandus travels into the jungle, the more apparent it becomes that the Engineer was right: this is not an ordinary place. Mandus was here – wherever “here” is – for so brief a time last year that he did not notice how little he hungered, how slowly he tired, how clean his skin and hair remained despite the humidity. Now all these things are abundantly clear.

He would think it a dream were it not for the Engineer’s presence at the back of his consciousness, bleeding hurt and bitterness. The Engineer has not contacted Mandus recently, but the name “Mayahuel” slips into his mind now and then. He discerns that this is the name of an Aztec goddess. Little though he believes this is Amaya’s identity, he understands why it would upset the Engineer if it were.

Hence, Mandus does not tell the Engineer about the time he scraped his palm on a tree trunk and a beautiful blue-and-black hummingbird sipped delicately from the cut. He does not mention the jaguar that often pads at Amaya’s side. Nor does he describe the quetzal bird that sometimes flutters overhead, emerald tail feathers streaming behind for three feet or more. Mandus knows enough of Aztec mythology to guess that these are sacred animals, totems of the gods.

Most especially, he does not tell the Engineer that at times Amaya seems to be wrapped in a wind that shimmers and coils like a serpent’s body.

Whatever Amaya is, she knows things – or at least, she hints that she does – far beyond human comprehension.

One afternoon (is there such a thing in this halfway place?), they are sitting by a deep green pool, surrounded by countless animal voices. As always, none of them are visible. The sacred creatures Mandus has glimpsed now and again seem to be the only living things in this place, the standard-bearers of power. The air is charged with it: a weight, an energy that stirs his soul until his body can scarcely contain it.

Thinking of this, and of all the things he has seen, Mandus looks into Amaya’s depthless dark eyes and asks her, “Is God real?”

Amaya does not look at all put off by this. “What is God, to you?”

“I don’t suppose God can really be understood…”

“What do you imagine?”

“Well, to put it simply, a very wise and powerful entity, or perhaps a force. The creator and sustainer of the world.”

Amaya nods. “Then yes, God is real.”

“And is there one god or many?”

“Yes.”

Mandus almost laughs. “To which?”

“Just yes.”

“That isn’t possible. It must be one or the other.”

Amaya lets out a chiming, golden laugh like the sunlight dappling the forest floor. “Human beings are so fond of rules and divisions! Linnaeus and Darwin sought to classify living things but always found exceptions… And now you, Oswald Mandus, have the arrogance to put the divine into a box!” She shakes her head gently. “One god or many! You will understand someday. Here, it’s like this…” She withdraws a cord from beneath her blouse, on the end of which is a clear crystal. “The sunlight is divinity, this stone is all the thousands of years of human life and imagination, and this…”

She tilts the crystal so a scintillating array of colors dances from its facets.

Mandus knows what she means, but his human mind, so comforted by black and white binaries, cannot quite accept it.

He wonders, not for the first time, if Amaya is mad. He doesn’t think so. He would have, a year ago, but not now.

Without any prompting whatsoever, Mandus asks, “And am I going to hell, in the eyes of God – whatever God might be?”

Amaya cocks her head as if there is something wrong in what Mandus just said. Then she seems to decide that it would take too long to explain.

Instead she says, “That is entirely up to you.”

888

The Engineer avoids Mandus after that first realization about Mayahuel – indeed, avoids most of the world. The weather feeds his withdrawal. He sits in the bothy while the snow flurries outside, propped against the stone wall, and sketches machinery. Steam engines, flywheels, belts and spinning mules: anything to take his mind off his apparent abandonment.

He cannot quite bring himself to sketch the symbols of his gods. It feels presumptuous: not a familiar emotion. Until now, he has always felt that power was his right.

Mandus no doubt believes he has lost more than the Engineer because Mandus’s treasures were real. Not so. Mandus can recollect a time when he was, without doubt, a husband and father. His wife and children have left the earthly plane, but their souls still exist, and Mandus may cherish the hope of seeing them again. Mandus has merely _lost_ his family. The Engineer’s godhood, on the other hand, never even –

His mind shies from that thought with a wave of nausea. He still cannot think it. It would leave him with nothing at all.

One night, perhaps fueled by these thoughts, he has an experience which will define his time in the Hebrides, though he does not yet know it.

He has taken advantage of a rare clear night to sit outside the bothy and look up at the stars, nibbling on some dried fruit and nuts he brought from home. Tired from his wanderings and emotionally exhausted, he tips onto his side and falls asleep right there in the brittle grass.

He dreams of falling. When he wakes, the world is gone.

The stars and moon have retreated, and he cannot distinguish land from sky from sea. Everything is uniformly black, as if the substance of the world has been replaced with coal dust. 

His breathing quickens, then speeds beyond control. Trembling suffuses his limbs. He cannot even feel the ground beneath him.

Time slows to a crawl. Deprived of sensory perception, he cannot distinguish where the land ends. Though a tiny part of him knows he must still be outside the bothy, he is terrified that if he so much as lifts his head he will fall into the empty air. Just like in his dream.

Then, just when his fear becomes consuming, he discerns Mandus’s voice.

_…have a dream, little one? I can feel your heart racing._

The Engineer’s terror is so complete that he allows his mind and heart to fall open in the hope that Mandus can offer deliverance from the void. His thoughts come in an unbroken stream of childlike distress: _I had a dream I was in the factory on New Year’s Eve I was pursuing you and my architectures crumbled apart and I fell and fell and fell into the dark and then I woke in the dark and there’s nothing here and I don’t know if I’m still asleep or if the world has disappeared –_

Mandus seems to understand enough of this. _You are awake now. You must be if you can talk to me_ , he says gently.

_No Mandus there’s nothing here I daren’t move I’ll fall again –_

_It’s only cloudy, little one. Can you feel or hear anything that might give you a grasp of reality?_

The Engineer makes a conscious effort to push past the terror buzzing in his head and focus on the world. At first there is nothing, but then at length, a low, soft tolling comes to him from out at sea. A bell mounted on a buoy, ringing as it rocks on the tide.

He grasps that sound as if it is his last link to life and refuses to let it go. At first the intervals between the tolling of the bell feel endless: vast, unshielded spans of time in which the world may crumble out from beneath him. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he learns to time the gaps. One…two…three…four…and on the fifth beat of his heart, another peal. That ringing becomes part of his body, his breath.

_Better now?_ he hears Mandus ask, but he does not break his concentration to respond. Mandus can no doubt feel that the Engineer is calming down.

Eventually, he relaxes enough to still his tremors and lay his head on his arms. The buoy keeps him lucid, tucking each wave, each breath, each moment gently aside.

At last he drifts off.

He knows he has slept when he wakes beside the still-warm ashes of his fire with gray daylight in his eyes, muscles stiff from a night spent curled on the ground.

He stretches his limbs one by one, cracking his joints, easing the knots from his neck. Then he sits up painfully and shakes the sandy dirt from his hair. In the plain light of day, it is obvious that the Engineer had nothing to fear last night. The world has not sheared away and left him trapped on a vanishing spit of land, nor has the sky fused with the sea in one seamless abyss. No doubt it was just very cloudy, as Mandus said. There is no ambient glow here, as there is in London’s streets.

The Engineer is almost afraid to look for the buoy, thinking that his inanimate savior may have been little more than a product of his frightened imagination. But it is still there. The bell is still chiming with every wave. He can’t believe he never noticed it before in all the quiet nights he has spent in the bothy, but perhaps the sound of the surf distracted him. Whatever the case, he is glad to have noticed it last night. He came perilously close to losing himself, taking a fall into insanity just as he fell into the bowels of the factory in his dream. The buoy was his ground, his anchor.

_Mandus is like that buoy_ , he thinks before he can stop himself.

The Engineer tries to banish his gratitude to Mandus, the thief of his gods and godhood. But all he can think about is lying on the parlor floor, sick and despairing and near to death, and Mandus’s arm around him.

That was what Mandus did last night, in a way. He could not give the Engineer physical comfort, so he offered rational advice just when it was needed most.

And so the Engineer accrues another debt to his maker.

Bitterness fills his mind. Yet if he pushes past it, he senses that all of this – his dream, the darkness, the buoy, Mandus – is connected.

As he thinks this, he feels the pull of the fire tower once more, and his head turns to the northeast as if on a wire. He and that tower are invisibly connected. He senses that it, too, has some role to play in the drama of his life.

But it frightens him with its strange, voiceless lure. He has a sudden desire to stand upon its height.

He cannot. He cannot risk another fall.


	16. Falling

15\. Falling

It is evening when Mandus and Amaya reach the pyramid, just as it was last year.

They come through a gap in the trees, and there is the temple rising against the pink and amber twilight. The weathered cap of a steep-sided pyramid, so like those of Egypt, stone falling away from the summit, vines intertwining the stucco serpents that thrive about the steps. A palpable stillness, a weight of the forgotten.

He is here again, at the foot of these stairs.

Mandus’s first impression, before memories can rise to the surface, is that of power. The jungle bows in silence to some greater presence, stills its myriad voices with the hush of a cathedral. Whatever dwells here is immense and solemn, but it does not feel like the stone egg. When Mandus held the Orb, it clouded his thoughts and filled his head with fog so that he did not know whether he was sick or well, awake or dreaming. The power in this temple has a weight, too, but not an oppressive sort. It’s more like a heavy blanket on a cold night. His soul seems to quake and dance all at once in response.

Mandus does not try to look beyond this sense of majesty. Edwin and Enoch wait there.

Amaya stands back a little way, allowing Mandus to approach the base of the pyramid on his own. At first it isn’t so difficult, but the nearer he draws to the first weathered stair, the harder it becomes to put one foot in front of the other. It’s as if the air has become a physical barrier. This has nothing to do with the sacred power that sleeps in this place and everything to do with Mandus. His mind is full of doubts, all his nightmares returning: What if his sons hate him? What if they wish him dead? Or, alternatively: What if the stone egg has returned here, and what if he cannot resist it?

He thinks of the blood he shed on these stones, and his knees buckle. _I can’t do it. God help me, I can’t do it…_

Amaya approaches him from behind and lays a hand on his shoulder. She speaks no word of comfort, for she must know in her wisdom that there are none.

“You needn’t do it right away,” she says instead. “Take all the time you need.”

Mandus looks up at her, searching her face for answers. “I never told you why I had to come here…”

“I know.” Just that, just those two words. For a moment Amaya’s accent is gone. In its place is something neither English nor Spanish, neither male nor female, but all of those things and more. One voice yet many, unified yet diverse.

"You don’t really need to eat here, but you should,” she goes on. That depthless voice disappears in a blink, replaced by her usual Spanish accent. She goes off to acquire some bright yellow-orange fruits from a nearby tree.

Perplexed, Mandus sits down to rest. He knows he isn’t imagining things. He has been noticing for some time that the more Amaya speaks of things unknown and things divine, the less she sounds like a Mexican woman. Her choice of words never changes – she has always been fluent in English – but the sound of her speech does. Though Mandus only realizes it now, this is not the first time Amaya has lapsed into that other voice, as if speaking for everyone who has ever lived and all those still unborn.

He finds himself sketching in the damp soil with his finger, outlining the layout of his factory to give his hands something to do. Playing with whatever happens to be nearby has always been a nervous habit of his. He can remember standing before his father as a young man, reporting on the factory’s productivity, all the while playing cat’s cradle with a mesh of steel wool.

Amaya returns shortly, bearing an armful of fruit. She slices one with an obsidian knife Mandus never noticed before and spreads the pieces on her skirt. Then she gestures for Mandus to take what he likes. Mandus bites hesitantly at the flesh of a slice. Finding the flavor to be sweet and deep with a surprising tang at the end, he swallows the rest.

“I don’t believe I can climb that temple just yet,” he says when his mouth is empty, “but I know I shall in the end, or at least I fervently hope so. My Engineer, however, seems lost. He doesn’t yet know what he seeks. Whatever you are, perhaps you should go to him.”

“I _have_ ,” says Amaya gently. “He must learn to listen.”

“How can you be here and there at once?”

Amaya gives him a look as if to say, _I brought you to a sacred temple no one can find, and you doubt I can be in two places at once?_

Mandus nods, hands raised. “Point taken, ma’am. So, this dream of his, about the catwalks crumbling from beneath him – might it symbolize his lost godhood?”

"Why don’t you ask him?”

“He isn’t speaking to me at the moment. He’s ashamed of the nightmare, for one thing. He also believes you to be an Aztec goddess whose favor I’ve stolen from him.”

Amaya laughs gently. “You may tell him that is not true.”

“Which part of it? That you are a goddess, or that I have your favor?”

Amaya just chews her fruit.

_Not this again._

Sensing that he will get no answers, Mandus turns his head to gaze up at the pyramid. It’s so large he has to crane his head to see the top, so solid, so real. Still, he can hardly believe he is here at the Temple of the Stone Moon once more, here where his life ended and began. Where it will end and begin again, if he has the courage.

_I don’t know that I’m strong enough_ , he thinks. _There is so little left in me. I’ve come this far, yet I fear the last few steps will be the hardest of all._

He wishes the Engineer could be here. Perhaps Mandus would be stronger with his soul made whole.

888

The Engineer cannot stop thinking about that day in the parlor and Mandus’s arm around him. This brings him to a realization.

He has only three options: to fight Mandus, to ignore Mandus, or to accept Mandus. Ignoring him has proven impossible, and the Engineer is fast running out of strength to fight. His thought about Mandus being like the buoy is proof enough of that. So, in that case, he can only hold out until he is exhausted and forced to give up, which will leave him with a shred of dignity. Or he can hope to find some heretofore untapped reserve of stubbornness and hold Mandus off a bit longer. Passive surrender is not in his nature.

But if he is truly Mandus’s antagonist, why can he not stop thinking about all the times Mandus has comforted him, and all the times he comforted Mandus in return? Has his defeat and loss of identity made him soft? Why else should he feel himself drawn towards an alliance, or at least a truce, with the man who nearly killed him? He can understand why Mandus felt it necessary to destroy the Machine, but that should not equate to forgiveness.

Should it?

No, he is a fool for thinking it. If these feelings are anything at all, they are the result of his soul-bond with Mandus. It isn’t that he _wants_ comfort from Mandus, but he accepts it because he and Mandus are one. It’s only natural. There is no real care or concern in it, just instinct.

That explanation satisfies him for the moment.

He returns to all his old haunts: the wrecked boat, the rock arches, the standing stones, the cave mouth. He does not stay long in this last place. The dark hole in the rock swallows his lantern-beam and reminds him of the night he woke in the void. It’s too close to the fire tower as well. The more he looks at it, the more he wants to climb. The inclination swells until it seems to pulse through his veins, beckoning him towards the precipice.

It is the nearest thing to a sign he has received since arriving in the Hebrides, yet he cannot heed it. Climbing carries an attendant risk of falling.

For the same reason, he can never finish the question, _What am I if I am not a god?_

888 _  
_

Mandus does not know how long he has spent at the base of the pyramid. He tries every day to climb it. Every time, a terrible pressure seizes his chest the moment he puts his incongruous polished boot on the bottom step. The longer he stands there, the tighter it squeezes. He is always forced to retreat, panting for breath and head hanging in shame. For all that he knows it’s his own mind doing this to him, his own guilty conscience, it feels as though some external force is driving him away. He cannot help but wonder if it is his sons’ bitter spirits.

He asks Amaya once if Edwin and Enoch are here. She only says cryptically, “Yes, but not here especially. They can be anywhere.”

Early in their endeavors, the Engineer told Mandus that victims of sacrifice are welcomed by Huitzilopochtli as attendants of the sun. Mandus knows this assurance that his sons have a powerful patron deity was meant, in a strange way, to soothe him. It didn’t. Amaya’s comment does little better. But if she is right, at least Mandus’s children are free, not bound to the site of their deaths.

What he truly wants is his children back, and even Amaya can’t make that wish come true.

Instead, she takes care of him. When Mandus is physically and mentally drained by his attempts to climb the pyramid, Amaya finds him shady patches of fallen leaves to lay in. She brings him water and all manner of fruits and nuts from the jungle. He doesn’t need food to sustain him in this place, but it comforts him to maintain a semblance of normality. At night Amaya teaches him strange constellations he has never seen before and points out distant galaxies shaped like crabs and storm clouds and horse heads.

Mandus isn’t afraid of the jaguar anymore. He even strokes its head sometimes. Its fur is coarse, but it nuzzles its massive head into his hand just like a house cat.

The quetzal sometimes sits on his shoulder.

It seems terribly unfair that Mandus should receive all this divine attention when the Engineer has apparently had none. Mandus at least knows who he is, or who he wants to be; the Engineer lacks even that. He asks Amaya about this again, but she only repeats that the Engineer must learn to look and listen.

Mandus wants to help his wayward child, so, when the Engineer permits it, Mandus explores the island through his eyes. It’s a rugged place, bleak this time of year but beautiful in its harshness. The cliffs and valleys, the ring of standing stones, the beaches with their bones of rock all bespeak great age and solemnity. Mandus sees nothing miraculous about any of it until he catches a glimpse of the tall metal tower on the northeast horizon. It is a nonsensical structure that should not be there, yet its very absurdity affirms it. Something so strange does not appear by chance.

The Engineer does not seem to like it very much. He never speaks of it, never looks at it long. When he sees it his dread floods into Mandus’s stomach. 

It strikes Mandus that they are both faced with structures to climb, at the top of which await answers that may leave them with nothing. That dread, that fear of falling, keeps them from making the ascent.

Still, the fire tower seems important, so he encourages his other. _Climb_ , Mandus tells him, _when you’re ready. Approach your gods in their heavens and ask them what you need to know._

_You stole my gods_ , the Engineer replies. _They favor you now._

_That isn’t what Amaya says. She says she is with you if you would only listen._

_You believe my gods are telling me to climb the fire tower?_

_It’s as plausible as anything else. And one’s view is always clearer from a high place, so to speak._

_I can’t. What if I should fall?_

Mandus knows it isn’t a bodily fall the Engineer fears.

888

The Engineer does all he can to satisfy his desire to climb. He walks all around the southern half of the island, hiking up hills and cliffside paths. He even steps out onto one of the rock arches over the beach. It dampens the terrible longing for a time.

He tries to keep it at bay. When he sleeps in the bothy, he faces away from the fire tower, denies its strange lure. Yet it always creeps back in like a breath on the back of his neck, an alien pulse fluttering in his veins.

He is running out of places to climb. Soon he may have no choice.

888

The two counterparts try to distract each other from the things they cannot face. Their conversations mean nothing, and everything.

_What do your gods say of the soul?_ Mandus asks one night as he looks up at the strange stars.

The Engineer is listening to the buoy bell to keep himself from dreaming. _They don’t, at least not as you imagine the soul_ , he replies _. They speak of three animating forces, each dwelling in a different part of the body._

_Including the heart, I imagine._

_Of course: the_ teyolia _, the divine fire that becomes a bird after death and lends strength to the sun._

_If you believe this, how is it that you were created? Was only one of my three essences transferred to you?_

_I don’t see why it couldn’t have been all three._

_Then I have no soul? Or only half of one?_

_Only if you believe that something as intangible as the soul is finite, Mandus._

This is a fair point, Mandus thinks as he takes a bite of one of Amaya’s fruits. He considers the Engineer’s nature, all the ways they two are different and yet the same. _I once thought that I had been split cleanly down the middle_ , he says, _that I contained all the good and you all the evil. Since then, I’ve realized it isn’t so simple. We aren’t opposites so much as inversions. In you my ruthlessness and antipathy come to the surface. Yet buried beneath it is all my loyalty and ingenuity and, I daresay, love._

_We each harbor pieces of the other, you say._

_Yes, exactly. Though I do wish I had more of your ruthlessness now. Perhaps I could climb the temple if I did._

_Little good it’s done me. I would give it to you if I could._

_Would you indeed? And you still deny that you would have protected me had we known each other as children? You know, I had a dream about you –_

_My condolences. Please tell me I killed you._

Mandus knows enough of the Engineer’s mannerisms to understand that this is sardonicism, not a threat. _No, quite the opposite_ , he says. _I got into trouble at school, my father threatened me with the strap, and you took my place._

In the bothy across the ocean, the Engineer laughs aloud. _As if I would!_

_Not as you are now, no. But perhaps at one time._

_No, never. I am irredeemably selfish._

_Well, at least you’re honest. Did you not tell me once that mine was an honest evil, and that alone set me above other men?_

_I was trying to keep your allegiance. You were wavering at the time, as I recall. Honesty is terribly overrated in most circumstances._

Mandus has to stop himself from thinking, _Of course you would say that: you can’t even tell yourself the truth of your own humanity._ This conversation has thus far been remarkably light, and Mandus would have it end with smiles, not bitterness.

_Well, I’m flattered you hold such a high opinion of my character, Mandus_ , the Engineer goes on, _but you are sure to be disappointed. I will never protect you, not unless I stand to gain from it._

In the dark, Mandus smiles. _But you_ have _protected me._

The Engineer’s head jerks up so sharply it nearly strikes the stone wall. _What?_

_You’ve kept my mind off my troubles for a little while, with no benefit to you._

The Engineer’s mind races to deny this, then hits upon the answer. _It distracted me as well._ His mind-voice doesn’t sound quite as smooth as he would like, but it will do.

_Ah, is that so?_

_Of course. How dare you imply otherwise?_

The conversation ends there, Mandus smiling gently and the Engineer feeling extraordinarily aggravated.

Just an instinct, the Engineer reminds himself. Nothing more.

888

In the end, it is the fire tower that makes the decision, or at least sets the final chain of events in motion. Had he not been distracted by it, he might have taken his emergency vial of Compound X when he went to refill his canteen. Had he not been looking up at that tower, he might have noticed how close he was to the cave mouth. Had he been aware of his footing, he might not have slipped on a patch of loose pebbles.

He tumbles backwards into the dark, just like in his dream. The impact jars his system wildly out of balance, and his awareness flies away.

888

… _you hurt? Speak to me, tell me if you’re hurt!_

Mandus’s voice ripples across the Engineer’s consciousness like a stone tossed into a still pond. The fog around his brain slowly disperses until the words become clear. Then he realizes without really realizing it that his eyes are open.

It takes him so long to realize this because the world is dark.

For one horrifying moment, he thinks his dreams have come true and he has fallen into the bowels of the world, never to see light again.

He tries to sit up. His body is stiff and aching, his mouth dry, his left leg alarmingly wet and cold. Putting his hand there, he feels the ragged edge of a tear in his trousers and his own chilled skin. He smells the metallic tang of Compound X on his fingers. There is little sensation in the limb, just a sort of prickling numbness.

Fear grips him tight in iron jaws. His inhalations are shallow and shuddery. He is dazed, injured; he has no lantern, no idea how far he has fallen, and no compound with which to revive himself. All he has is…

_Little one, are you hurt?_

The Engineer groans. Not this again. Not more debts, more comfort…

And yet, if he is brutally honest with himself, his need for Mandus predates New Year’s Eve. When Mandus sabotaged the Machine the first time and the Engineer’s awareness went dark, he was so afraid that he would be trapped that way forever, powerless and blinded and alone. He found himself wishing for the company of his own saboteur: his creator, his father. Even before that, there were so many times when the horrors of the future nearly overwhelmed him. So many times when he came within a breath of seeking solace from Mandus. When he nearly revealed the child beneath the god’s mask.

So he is no weaker now than he ever was. But now he has more reason than ever not to look to Mandus for consolation. That would be the final defeat, to come crawling back to the father who scorned him.

But does Mandus scorn him still? And what choice does the Engineer have?

_Where are you?_ Mandus asks. _It looks dark._

The Engineer sits up gingerly, puts a hand to his head to stem a rush of dizziness. He takes a shaky breath to slow his heart. He must be rational about this if he is not to meet with an unfortunate end. This is not a dream, and the world has not disappeared.

He looks up to see a feeble gray glow filtering through the mouth of the cave. It isn’t enough to illuminate the rocky ground, but it doesn’t look terribly distant.

_I fell down into a cave_ , he tells Mandus. _I don’t seem to have fallen far, but I don’t have a lantern, and I’ve hurt my leg._

_It isn’t healing?_

_I…I’m not sure. It’s numb, really, but I think it’s still bleeding. I’m so far from the factory and I’ve not been eating much. That must be inhibiting the compound._

_But you can move it?_

He flexes his leg experimentally. It is slow to respond, and it feels more like a slab of meat than a limb, but it will do if the climb is not too steep.

_More or less._ His panic is fading, dimming to a flickering, ambient anxiety.

_Can you climb out?_

He doesn’t even know if he can stand, but he supposes he must try.

_Will you stay with me?_ he hears himself ask before he can stop the thought. His face flushes cold. Why did he say that? How could he say that? How could he let Mandus know –

_Of course I will._

What? No sarcasm? Not a single comment on the Engineer’s weakness?

_I’ll stay as long as you need. Do try to be careful, all right?_

Nothing for it, then. Now that he’s shamed himself, he cannot fail to get out of this. That would give Mandus far too much satisfaction.

He looks up at the circle of dim light and sighs. This is not going to be easy.

Standing up proves a trial in itself. He can just barely feel his left foot through the tingling, and it puts him off balance. He finds himself swaying dangerously and reaching for handholds that aren’t there. When he does manage to drag his injured leg across the chamber, he sees a tumble of rocks sloping down from the cave mouth, as if this part of the cliffs collapsed inward in some forgotten time. He has to make his way by feel, but there are little gaps between the boulders where he can lodge his hands and feet. Even so, he slips back to the bottom more than once. His wounded leg is uncooperative, his strength drained by his fall.

Mandus is there all the while. He says nothing, but the Engineer can feel his calm, steady presence at the back of his mind, pulsing strength into his limbs. He hates to admit it, but if not for Mandus, he might have given up after his third bruising tumble to the cave floor.

The parlor. Mandus’s arm around him like a warm blanket. Hating it, needing it, hating to need it. Embracing it.

The Engineer’s arms are quivering when he emerges blinking into a steel-and-rose sunset and collapses in the grass. He lays there for a moment, taking heaving breaths of the salty air. Mandus is still there, saying something. The Engineer’s mind is buzzing, spinning, too exhausted to make sense of the words.

When he has caught his breath, he rolls himself to his feet and sets about dragging his wounded leg behind him back to the bothy. The walk is mostly downhill, thank the gods, but the ground is uneven. He spends a good deal of time on his knees.

Inside the bothy, he lets himself crumple in the corner beside his neat pile of supplies. He locates his emergency vials of Compound X, tucked in a hole in the floor to keep them cool. He takes one and unscrews the top with shaking hands.

_Are you back?_

Mandus’s voice, seeping into his consciousness like molasses.

He nods. It’s all he can do. His vision is blackening, the stones of the bothy swimming and flowing into one another.

_I don’t think you ought to drink that whole canister_ , Mandus goes on. _You know how strong that concoction is, even for you. Drink it slowly, or it might –_

The Engineer looks down at his leg, still oozing blue-green liquid. The wound isn’t deep, but he is so tired, so thirsty…

He puts the canister to his lips and tilts his head back.


	17. Climbing

16\. Climbing

Mandus is right, of course: the full canister is too much. By the next morning, the Engineer’s leg has healed, but his equilibrium is shattered. His temperature fluctuates wildly, leaving him alternately shuddering with cold and dazed with heat. At times the bothy is the bothy, at times the ivory wallpaper and oriental rugs of the parlor. He knows Mandus is speaking, but he can scarcely clarify the words.

One thing is clear, however: the fire tower. The image of that slender lattice is stamped behind his eyes, and its call is stronger than ever: _Come. Climb. Find your answers._

His fear and dread are drowned in delirium. There will never be a better time to go.

Mandus’s thoughts lift their heads above the mist now and again. _You can’t… You’re sick, God only knows what might happen… Stay where you are and rest…_

The Engineer traces the rim of the empty canister with a trembling finger. He fancies he can hear a faint crystalline chiming: the music of the spheres, the song of the universe.

He shakes his head with a smile. _No, Mandus. Time to go. I’ve been a fixture on your parlor floor long enough._

_Do you know where you are?_ Mandus’s thoughts are colored with alarm, like a red flush. _You aren’t at home, you’re in the Hebrides, on an uninhabited island. In your state, almost anything might kill you!_

But the Engineer is already at the door to the bothy. Dimly, he wonders why his former enemy is so concerned for him, but the delirium has an elegant answer: Mandus is a father, and the Engineer is a child. Bitterness should accompany this thought, but it doesn’t. It is simple fact. “ _In vino veritas_ ,” is that the phrase? Perhaps there is truth in fever also.

Somewhere down on the beach, the wind whistles mournfully through the rock arches. This time the Engineer discerns its meaning, hears it call his name – _Yollotli, Yollotli, heart of the machine, come lay your soul bare to us and be not afraid._

_I’ll be just fine_ , he tells his maker. _I understand now._

_Understand what? You don’t sound at all like yourself._

No, the Engineer isn’t himself. He is serene, assured, mind wiped clear, no longer pathetic, no longer afraid. At least for now, nothing stands in his way.

_Come with me, Mandus_ , he says, and sets off.

He will go to the caves. He will go down into the womb of this island and be reborn on the other side, and then he will climb. His gods know well that caves are points of origin, places of emergence, chrysalises of nascent souls.

Of course, they can also lead to the underworld, but that will not be his fate. The gods of death have held him long enough.

888

“Did you do this, Amaya?”

Mandus is anxious. He doesn’t know exactly why, and that makes him more anxious still. Part of it is his paternal instinct, turned upon the Engineer – _I want you to have an adventure, but only on my terms, so you’ll be safe_ – but beneath that is a deeper distrust of the extraordinary that has been working its way to the surface since Veracruz.

“Did you do this?” he repeats. “Did this happen to him because of you?”

Amaya shakes her head serenely. “No, and that’s the best of all: I didn’t need to. He managed it himself. Now his mind is open.”

“Amaya, he isn’t lucid!”

“Isn’t he? I would say that now he can see the truth.”

Mandus has had quite enough of Amaya’s mysticism and cryptic hints. He wants straight answers for once in his life, wants to know what is happening in terms he can understand.

“The truth, is it?” he snaps. “Did you tell me the truth when you said you did not serve the stone egg? Did you tell me the truth when you said that the Temple of the Stone Moon can’t be found? I had a guide last year; I would be willing to gamble that he brought me here just as you did. Or do you mean to say that he was leading me to an ordinary temple near Papantla, and that I was…pulled into this place somewhere along the way?”

Amaya nods. “To him, it would have been as if you simply wandered off when his back was turned and came back minutes later, without your children. He would have assumed the little ones got lost or were taken by an animal. Do you not see? This place is not in Papantla; it isn’t anywhere. This is a private world, and you stumbled upon the doorway because you were permitted to.”

“Permitted by whom, by _what_?” Mandus nearly growls, shaking his head. “By you? By the stone? Because I was vulnerable, because I was unlucky?” He feels his throat tighten, and he wishes his artificial eyes could weep. “Why, Amaya? Why did all this happen to me?”

Amaya’s eyes soften, and she shrugs a little. “I don’t know for certain. Your great-uncle was familiar with the Orbs; perhaps that’s why this temple did not see you as a stranger. Perhaps your soul split because you were uninitiated and far too human to endure the stone’s power. And there was already a crack deep within you, I think; there had been since your wife’s death. Perhaps your Engineer could wield the stone because he believed himself a god. The godhood was false, but he drew real strength from it.”

Although this does make some sense, Mandus does not want to hear this woman tell him his own secrets as if she’s known him since birth. “What are you?” he demands. “Are you a god, or are you a devil?”

Amaya draws herself up a little. The sun glints through the trees behind her, setting embers in her dark hair. She is not smiling.

“I am the light behind the eyes,” she says. “I am the fire upon the soul. I am the love that swells the heart, and all the deepest feelings for which there are no names.”

That strange voice again, the voice that is Amaya’s and all other voices besides, the voice of every living being, past, present, and future.

Mandus isn’t sure what any of this means, but he is keenly aware that the air around Amaya is crackling with power, like the pressure before a storm. It frightens him, although he senses that he is not the target. Amaya is a mother bear, ready to strike down whatever would bring her children to harm.

He lets out a shaky breath. “You aren’t human.”

“You knew that.” Her voice is her own again, but her expression has lost none of its intensity. She gestures at herself. “If I met you in England, I would look like an Englishwoman. This disguise is for your own good. My true form would be too much for you.”

“Then whatever you are…keep my Engineer safe.”

This seems to strike Amaya oddly. (It strikes Mandus oddly, too; in fact, he isn’t sure why he said it.) She cocks her head. “Of course. I am with him even now, though he will not see me as you do. Why are you so concerned for him?”

Mandus does not need to wonder long. In this place, of all the places in the world, the answer quickly crystallizes.

“He is my child,” Mandus says. There is a trace of hoarse desperation in his voice, the instinctive terror of loss. “I cannot lose my last child.”

And he needs a child so very badly, he realizes. His fatherhood is like the Engineer’s godhood: as essential as breathing, the cornerstone of his identity. It isn’t his sole attribute, but it forms the foundation of so much else. If he loses it, he will fall.

Suddenly he understands more clearly than ever why the Engineer is so afraid.

888

The Engineer is prepared for the drop into the cave this time. Indeed, he takes it at a leap, without a single vial of Compound X at hand should something go wrong. He lands in a crouch on the rocky, sandy ground and sets off.

It soon becomes clear that he needs no lantern. Beyond the first chamber, the rocks and dripping walls are almost covered in efflorescent niter, illuminating the tunnels with a soft blue-green glow. It is the same color as the paint he found on the wrecked boat, nearly the same as the glow from the reactor pool, brighter than Compound X but still close kin. _His_ color, beckoning him on.

The tunnels do not branch. The Engineer knows instinctively that should he follow to the end, he will cut through the belly of the island and emerge on the northern side. With his course clear, he does not hurry. He stops to marvel at anything that takes his fancy, for there is so much beauty here. The tunnels themselves are unremarkable, but between them are chambers in which he could lose himself for hours. One, for instance, is the size of a ballroom, cut by a stream and traversed by a perfect natural bridge. Its illumination comes entirely from blue crystals the color of the Engineer’s lifeblood. The clusters are everywhere – on both shores of the stream, climbing the walls, sprouting from boulders – but he likes the ones on the distant ceiling the best. They look like winking stars or jewels of frozen water.

Then there is a room with a slender waterfall, which drops into a pool as green as the jungle where he was born. He does not wonder how such lush growth could occur in the absence of sunlight. He has already accepted this place as a miracle. Back pressed to the wet wall, he tries to edge around the narrow lip of rock above the basin, but of course he soon slips and drops into the pool. He is tempted to stay underwater for a time to gaze at the green radiance all around him.

When he has swum to the other side and pulled himself into the next tunnel, he needs a rest. He strays out of time for a while, allowing his senses to slip away. He releases them willingly. He does not need them just now.

Coming back to himself, he finds the tunnel filled with a bright blue glow, brighter than any he has seen thus far. Around the bend, the narrow passage is filled with an explosion of expression. Outlined on the walls in luminescent niter are countless drawings: Aztec deities and sacred animals, engines and belts and flywheels, myth and mechanism seamlessly entwined – just what he meant to do with the cans of paint. Until now, he has blessed his fever for suppressing his fear, but he sees that he never had any reason to fear at all. This place is clearly meant for him. It bears the sigils of his most precious identities.

_Can you see it, Mandus?_ he asks. _Can you see how beautiful it is?_

Looking through the Engineer’s eyes, Mandus can indeed appreciate the cave’s natural beauty, but he perceives no drawings on the walls. He fears that the profusion of images the Engineer sees may be the last flare of a dying mind.

The Engineer carries on, wonder in every breath, until he comes to another wide room. This one is open to the outside. A stream trickles through the middle, wending its way out to sea. Night has fallen, so he must have slept for some time. The water is blue-black, the moon hovering in the cave mouth like a god’s eye.

Beyond this beach, he knows, are cliffs, and on one of those cliffs is the fire tower.

He sits down on the sandy ground to take one last rest before his ascent. The shock of his overdose is wearing off. He can feel his equilibrium returning, speaking sense, and with it, hints of terrible longing and dread. Not much time, then. That first fall into the cave was a miracle; it opened his mind enough to bring him here, and he must make use of the opportunity while he can.

He had to fall. He _has_ to fall. This is the message he has been hearing all along.

There are candles on the beach, marking his path. The gods are speaking.

888

_I had to fall. I have to fall._

Mandus does not trust this thought one bit, not in the Engineer’s current state.

_I beg you not to do this_ , Mandus responds. _You aren’t yourself! How can you even see? Do you mean to die?_

_Of course not_ , comes the thought, uncharacteristically serene. _Climb with me, Mandus. You climb the temple while I climb the fire tower. We shall meet the gods together._

_Please wait until it’s light!_

No answer.

Belatedly, Mandus wonders if he is afraid of what will happen to the Engineer, or of what will happen to Oswald Mandus if the Engineer leaves him.

888

This last walk is the most difficult of all. The longing is building despite the Engineer’s best attempts to push it away. He is filled with a powerful need for release: release from fear, from doubt, from shame, from the chains he has worn ever since Mandus touched the Orb last year. It feels as though his soul could leap from his body at any moment and take to the air, like the _teyolia_ of the dead. The pressure is physical – a weight on his chest, a barely-contained tension in his limbs.

But the dread is physical, too, as if something is wrapped around his ankles and dragging him back with every step. The voice of the child who could not bear the future rings loud in his ears: _Don’t let go don’t climb you will fall you will be nothing stay on the ground stay on the floor it’s safe on the floor you know who you are on the floor._

But what was he, as he lay in Mandus’s parlor? A god bereft of power, broken, hopeless, humiliated. No, that won’t do. Not so long ago, he would have been content to wallow in his own self-loathing and his hatred of Mandus to keep from asking himself the difficult questions, but that doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. He is afraid, so afraid, and he doesn’t want to admit that he might need Mandus after all. But one can only be afraid for so long before the fear turns to something else: anger, exasperation, acceptance, even hope.

The Engineer is tired of being afraid, tired of waking from nightmares with screams in his throat, tired of failing to save himself, much less the world. He must take the helm of his own life, even if that life amounts to nothing in the end. But to do that, he must ask one simple, impossible question with all the potential to destroy him.

The bones of age-old docks are strewn along the beach, wooden pilings slowly dissolving into the sea. Scattered amongst them like graveside offerings are paper boats. Some are afloat, bearing candles, but others are fast sinking and listing at odd angles. He could be like those half-sunken boats. That would be easy: to sink away into his own pain, let despair burn through him as it did on the day he drank the pig’s blood.

Destroying the world would have been easy, too. Part of him still aches for that simple finality. The future he faces now will be one of struggle and failure and hurt, but…will there be joy as well? He scarcely knows what joy is. He tasted it briefly on New Year’s Eve, when he thought he’d won the night, found it sweet indeed. Could he feel that way again?

For the very first time, it occurs to him that the twentieth century may hold triumphs as well as tragedies. The stone egg never showed him those happy moments, but does that mean they don’t exist? Do they outweigh the sorrow? Counterbalance it?

So many thoughts, and no time to consider them. His feet have carried him halfway up the cliffside path to the tower. He can see it above him, could almost swear a beacon light burns at the top, beckoning him upward. This vantage point offers him a spectacular view of the bay. The waters on this northern side of the island are strewn with smaller atolls, their dark bulk peeking above the waves like a sea monster’s coils.

Quetzalcoatl’s wind rises, sending dry leaves spiraling into the air. Tonight, all of nature is arrayed to tell him that he has only two choices: climb, or sink.

The path steepens, taking interminable, sinuous turns. At times there is scarcely any space between the cliff on his left and the edge on his right, but that doesn’t frighten him. This is not where he will fall.

In the final stretch, his clockwork heart is beating so hard that he has to stop frequently to catch his breath. He never really does. He cannot tell if the strain is due to the steep ascent or the tide of fear swelling inside him, shouting at him not to go on.

Or is it Mandus who is shouting? Mandus _is_ in his mind, and he sounds frightened, but the Engineer hardly hears the words. No, much of the anxiety he feels is his own, the fear he has known since the moment of his birth come to haunt him once again. Would that he could cast it into the air like those leaves, along with the stone egg’s visions.

The climb seems unending. One turn is so much like the next, one vista so much like the last, just a little smaller and farther away. As a result, he is startled when he rounds the last bend and sees the fire tower rising before him, a ghost of gray against black.

His breath catches. His hand goes to the pig-faced pendant beneath his shirt, but he doesn’t call to the gods this time.

_Be with me, Mandus._

For the first and perhaps the only time, no shame accompanies this thought.

He puts his hands on the first rung of the lattice and begins to climb.

The metal is reassuringly cold and solid beneath his hands. The higher he climbs, the more the tower sways in the wind. Though it isn’t a bodily fall he fears, he has to take real care to avoid it. When at last he is standing at the very top, with nothing between him and the open air, he sways dangerously despite his firm grip. There would have been a lookout platform at the top were this truly a fire tower, but there isn’t, because this isn’t a fire tower at all. This is much more like an aerial, he realizes now, like the radio towers he saw in the future. He is here to become transmitter and receiver both, to send his signals to the gods and accept their answers.

Now that he is here, looking up at the stars and the moon’s rippling reflection, he isn’t sure he can ask his question. He could still go back down. That would be easy.

But…no. He has been broken so many times. If he is to break again tonight, he will face it head-on, not cowering like a wounded animal.

_I don’t want to know._

_I need to know._

One breath. He lets that most terrible thought fill his mind, swallows hard against fear and nausea, raises his hands to the sun he cannot see in an attitude of prayer, asks for strength.

He feels his body tip forward. All high places exert a visceral pull, and he can only answer.

_I ask the_ teteoh _of the Thirteen Heavens: What am I if I am not a god?_

The next moment, he is falling.

He can feel the cold metal still clasped in his hands, but in his mind’s eye he is descending: not the panicked rush of free-fall, but a gentle glide, down past the tower and the cliffs, past the rocky paths, down to the beach and the candles… And then out, just before he touches the ground, out past the paper boats and rotting quays and over the water, into the moonlight.

He catches a glimpse of his shadow on the sea. It is a bird.

The moment he realizes this, the vision ends. He is still on the tower, leaning out into the air. His hands have gone white-knuckled on the metal, and his heart is full to bursting.

He has done it.

As always, the gods do not give clear answers, but this is more than enough. He closed his eyes, released his godhood, made himself vulnerable, took that fall, and in response his soul became a bird. Whatever happens now, he knows he is not nothing.

He lets out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.

He has wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, if you've played "Dear Esther," this chapter will make it clear how much I love that game. If you haven't played it and are looking for a beautiful interactive story, I would highly recommend it. :)


	18. Flying

17\. Flying

Mandus shares in the Engineer’s vision, but more importantly, he _feels_ it the moment the Engineer receives his revelation. It is a sublime transformation, as if a star has burst, fragments spraying across the universe, and been reborn as something new and brighter. 

At the same time, he knows instinctively that it is his turn now.

It is getting on into the evening in Mexico, and Mandus has not climbed the pyramid. He sits with Amaya, his old lantern burning between them, almost dizzied by the rich emotions radiating from the Engineer. It’s as if some internal mechanism has been wound a bit too tight, and now it’s spinning down faster than it should, vibrating joyously all the way.

 _Are you laughing or crying?_ he asks his other after a while.

 _I’m not sure._ The Engineer’s mind-voice has an almost breathless bubble to it tonight that Mandus has never heard before. _I nearly fell coming back down, and then I thought I’d best stay where I am._

_So you’ve decided to rest only after stumbling across an island and climbing a tower of questionable integrity in the dark._

_I couldn’t have waited. I would never have done this if I had._

_And you mean to stay there the rest of the night? You won’t be cold?_

_Is it cold? I don’t feel it._

_I’m glad for you, truly I am, but come back to earth now._

_And you? When is your moment?_

Mandus exhales sharply. _Tomorrow, I think. I…won’t be ready tonight._

_You won’t ever be ready, Mandus. Do it in the morning. Climb with the sun._

In spite of himself, Mandus smiles. The Engineer has always loved a bit of drama, and that does not seem likely to change.

 _Will you stay with me?_ Mandus asks hesitantly. _I know I asked you that before, on that night I dreamt I couldn’t breathe, and you refused, but…_ He sighs. _I can’t be alone._

The answer, when it comes, is unexpected. _This time, Mandus, I shall stay. I believe I can make that exception tonight._

_You sound more like yourself now._

That arrogance, that sarcasm, that condescension… Could Mandus someday look upon these things with a long-suffering, affectionate smile? Could he, by the grace of God, care for the Engineer, even love him as he loved Edwin and Enoch? He needs to, but does he _want_ to as well? Can he move beyond this consuming need for parenthood and become a father by choice?

They stay close to each other throughout the night (it will be day in the Hebrides long before it is in Mexico, but the Engineer does not seem to mind). They don’t speak much. The nearness of each other’s souls is comfort enough. It softens the edge of the growing pressure in Mandus’s heart, the tension between what he must do and what he cannot do.

Once, Mandus feels the Engineer exert a subtle influence on his mind, manifesting as a cold, calculated rationality. Mandus pushes it back. It was well-meant, but Mandus must face this as himself, with an unshielded mind and heart.

Amaya seems to know that this will be a special morning, for her appearance has changed. She has exchanged her practical skirts and blouse for a more elaborate dress of red, gold, and white. Ribbons adorned with little bells gild her neck, wrists, and ankles. Her dark hair hangs loose and adorned with macaw feathers. Mandus still does not think she is the goddess Mayahuel, but she is undeniably beautiful and filled with strength. As the sky lightens, her skin begins to shine from beneath with a golden light Mandus has never seen before. It is as if her human form is nearing the end of its usage, thinning beneath barely contained power.

“You cannot go with me?” he asks her. There is a note of pleading in his voice.

She shakes her head and kisses his brow. “You don’t need me now,” she says. “You have your little one. Draw strength from him.”

Mandus reaches out for the Engineer. He finds that calm, cold presence at the back of his mind and touches it, steadies himself.

Amaya turns him around to face the temple. “ _Vaya con Dios._ ”

He takes a breath and steps onto the bottom stair.

The usual weight returns, squeezing his chest and lungs, but this time there are two souls to push back against this barrier of grief. The Engineer may not have intended to contribute, but a strength that is and is not Mandus’s own is indeed flowing into him.

More important than the Engineer’s spiritual aid, however, is last evening’s realization. Mandus needs fatherhood, but the dead do not need fathers. He must let the dead go. He will never forget them or cease to love them, but he can do no more than that now. He cannot move forward otherwise. It’s time to say goodbye.

Each step takes him closer to his children’s resting place, beneath the cool stones of the altar, and each step steals more of his breath. The closer he comes, the more doubts and terrible questions arise to assail him.

 _I have a memory_ , Mandus says, _of bringing their…their skulls back with me. Burying them under the rhododendrons._

_That was a fever dream, Mandus. You did no such thing._

_But you told me, on New Year’s Eve, that when I came home from Mexico I set the Orb on the mantelpiece, and then I went into the garden alone and buried –_

_You had not remembered the truth at the time, and it served me well to keep you guessing until you’d done as I required. As long as you did not know the answers, you had to follow where I led. I used your fever dreams to my advantage: hints of something terrible, enough to keep you seeking the answers but too little to send you fleeing in despair._

Step. Breathe. Humid air, muscles contracting and expanding, all the world reduced to reflex. _Would you lie to me?_

_Not about this. Rest assured, your children’s heads are still their own._

Step. Breathe. Push down the spike of loss. _I have to believe you. I can’t bear the alternative._

_There is no alternative; I’m telling you the truth. I have never lied to you where your children are concerned._

Step. Breathe, bend double. Even his thoughts sound breathless. _You told me they were trapped in the sabotaged factory!_

 _I told you your_ children _were trapped there, not Edwin and Enoch. I was referring to the Man-pigs._

Step, step, step. Breathe. _Oh, you bastard. You must think yourself very clever!_

_Be angry. It might do you some good._

Step, step, step. _How can I trust you? All you’ve ever done is toy with my life for your own mad ends…_ Step, step, step. _…and as grateful as I am that you’re with me now…_ Step, step, step. _…when I come home, I mean to have a serious conversation about what I expect you to…_

Step, step, step, and –

He emerges onto a platform of weathered stone just as the sun crests the trees, dispersing the mists. Ahead of him is the altar-stone, and beyond it the square sanctuary that houses the stairs leading down into the pyramid. That was where he found the Orb, somewhere in that cool, dark labyrinth. He can scarcely hear its calls now, only a vague whispering on the edge of perception. He doesn’t feel at all tempted to go downstairs and see if it really has reconstituted itself. That desire has burnt itself out. This time, he does not come seeking power or wealth or prophecy.

His children rest somewhere beneath these ancient stones, too, forever hidden and protected from the world. _That_ temptation – to go down into the pyramid and see them one last time – is very powerful indeed.

No sooner does he think this than the Engineer’s voice fills his mind: hard, firm, brooking no objection. _Do not, Mandus. It will only hurt you._

And it isn’t just that he wants to pay his last respects, Mandus realizes, but also to look once more upon the evidence of his sin. He wants to punish himself in the most terrible way he can imagine. For a moment, he fears his legs may carry him down the sanctuary steps of their own accord.

 _You know what you did here_ , the Engineer goes on. _You know what you will find. You needn’t see it again; it won’t change a thing. Leave it be._

Mandus’s knees give out, and he sinks onto the rough, warm stone. He knows the Engineer is trying to protect him for some inscrutable reason, but he has never felt as helpless or trapped as he does now. Except perhaps the last time he stood here. _What, then? What shall I do?_

 _Talk to them, Mandus._ As if this is easy.

But what to say? There is nothing to say, nothing that will justify or rectify what he did in this place. Is it enough that he is here, fighting down the urge to be sick and the grief that is turning his organs into shards of broken glass? What else would matter to two souls who have passed beyond his power to heal or harm?

One thing, and one thing only.

He settles back, folds his hands in his lap, and looks up at the pinkening sky.

 _Hello, my loves_ , he thinks. _I wish I could see you. Are you looking after your mother and having all sorts of adventures without me there to scold you? Do you visit the places between the stars? Do you know where the thunder goes when it dies? Have you seen the face of God? Does God love you as I tried to? I wish you could tell me, my darlings._

_I always wanted you to have adventures, but I wanted to keep you safe as well. There was only me to keep you safe after your mother died, and that made me so afraid, because I was sure I would fail no matter how I tried. It was because I was afraid, and because I wanted so badly to keep you safe, that I… No, I won’t make excuses. There is no excuse for me, and I don’t ask you to forgive me. I only want you to know that I…_

His throat closes. All this has been mere preamble to the one thing that matters, the thing that ought to be so easy and yet is so impossible to say. He is unworthy to say it. He forfeited that right when last he stood here and spilled innocent blood on these stones.

But not saying it would be even worse, wouldn’t it? Allowing his guilt and shame to silence him, so that his children never hear the one thing they truly need to hear, would be a second betrayal.

He swallows hard. Takes a breath. Touches the Engineer’s presence for strength.

_I love you, my darlings. I miss you. I am so sorry. I love you so very much, and I always will._

His strength goes out of him. He slumps forward, shaking, shoulders heaving. It seems so few words, but they mean everything, and that is how it should be, isn’t it? If he had made a long confession, it would have been for his sake, not his children’s. Just another attempt to justify his actions. In his panting breaths and shattering love and the grief that will never leave him, he has offered his children the only sacrifice he can.

A moment passes in awful inadequacy, and the rush of emotions diminishes into exhausted dejection. He wonders whether he should offer his life on the altar-stone and complete the cycle. A small voice whispers rationally that he would have died on New Year’s Eve if his life truly were the proper payment, but what else could possibly be enough?

The Engineer has no answer. He has gone solemnly, gravely silent.

Then, just when Mandus is beginning to suspect with dawning horror that he has been rejected, the wind rises.

It stirs through his clothes, cools the sweat on his quivering skin, brushes his face and his tightly shut eyes. With it comes a warmth that passes far beyond the physical. It soaks through his bones and nerves and clockwork heart and into his soul, where it fills him with a sensation he has not known in ages. Indeed, he scarcely recognizes it at first. It is deeper than calm, sincerer than contentment, quieter than happiness, softer than hope. Yet it contains strains of all these things, mingled into a new, more perfect form. It is, he thinks, a bit like what he felt as he held the Engineer that day in the parlor.

And suddenly, he remembers its name: _peace_.

He doesn’t dare to believe it, to trust that this is anything more than a hallucination. Did he wish for this so fervently that his tortured mind called it into being? But no, he leans into the feeling like a warm embrace, and it does not diminish one bit. It only grows stronger.

His smile then is one of gratitude and bittersweet wonder. He knows precisely what message the wind has brought to him. It fills his soul so completely that he has to press his palms against the stones to hold it in.

His children wish him peace.

888

He sits before the altar for a long time, talking to his sons. With his confession made, he feels a burden lifted from his shoulders, and he can breathe freely again. Soon he finds himself telling Edwin and Enoch about everything and nothing and all the in-betweens. The Engineer remains with him, but at a respectful distance.

He tells his boys about his plans to reopen the factory: “I told you once that working people aren’t so different from you, so you oughtn’t turn your nose up at them. I’m not certain I lived up to that in the past, at least not as much as I could have, but I mean to now. I mean to give my operatives dignity and humanity and voice. You’ll come and scold me if I slip up, won’t you?”

He tells them about his adventures in Mexico: “I met an extraordinary woman named Amaya – perhaps you know her. She transported me into the jungle by magic while I slept, and do you know what? She keeps a jaguar as a companion, and he allowed me to scratch his head.”

And he tells them about the Engineer: “He came from somewhere deep inside me. The stone egg brought him to life. He looks just like me, but he has a nasty temperament, I’m afraid. I’m not sure you’d like him much. No doubt he would find you irritating. Oh, well. He is learning. He’s quite as much of a child as you are at the moment, but perhaps one day he’ll change.”

(Mandus can almost feel the Engineer rolling his eyes.)

If Edwin and Enoch have indeed been watching over Mandus since they appeared to him on New Year’s Eve, then no doubt they know this already. Still, it gives Mandus some comfort to speak to his sons as if they are right here with him. It makes the gulf between them seem a bit smaller. He knows, somehow, that they can hear him. And they are with their mother, safe from all harm: that comforts him, too. The children Lily never knew in life are now hers to love and cherish and protect forever.

It’s evening when Amaya climbs the pyramid and sits down beside Mandus with an armful of fruit. She offers him one, saying, “Try to get your strength back.”

Mandus says nothing. His words have been exhausted, and his very soul feels frayed. He accepts a piece of fruit and bites into it, letting the sweet, sharp juice run down his throat.

Amaya puts a comforting arm around him. He leans gratefully into her as if she were his mother. “Will you be going home now?” she asks.

Will he indeed? Perhaps not quite yet. He is utterly drained in body, mind, and spirit, and he needs to rest before throwing himself back into his work. But although there is sorrow and loss, there is also a tiny flickering flame of hope deep in his heart. He isn’t sure where his life will lead him now or if he will ever truly be happy – if he _should_ be happy – but at least now he _can_ live. He will always carry his children in his heart, will always miss them. Before this journey, however, he felt sure that loss would crush him to death. He doesn’t think so now. Armed with the knowledge that his sons wish him peace, he can bear anything.

Mandus sighs deeply. “Yes, I think so. I expect my Engineer will too. We’ve both found what we came looking for, and now… Now we have work to do.” The thought is daunting, and suddenly he doesn’t feel prepared to face it.

Amaya seems to understand. “Well, I’ll take you back to Veracruz and let you sleep a good long time. Once you’ve rested, your ship will be coming into port.”

He blinks. “Has it been so long? Are they sending the next group of railway men already?”

Amaya looks at him sideways as if to say, _They are if I say so._

“Will I ever see you again?”

“Oh, I’ll never be too far away, though you may not see me often. I’m interested to see what you do now, Oswald Mandus.”

Mandus smiles grimly. “So am I…and afraid.”

“Of course you are, but I would say the worst is behind you.” She looks up at the rosy sky as the wind plays with her hair. “And have you let them go?”

“No, not just yet… It still hurts so, so very much, but I believe I _could_ heal now. I’ve never felt that way before.”

Amaya nods. “You’ve done well.” She reaches up and unties one of the feathers from her hair. Mandus could swear it was a macaw feather before, but now it is undoubtedly a quetzal’s, iridescent blue-green and shimmering. “Take this back with you. Whenever you find yourself in despair, hold it tight and remember what you did today.”

Mandus lays the feather in the palm of his hand and strokes it gently. “My Engineer would love this.”

“Then give it to him, lest he think his gods have abandoned him. And, erm…tell him he need not shed any more blood – his own or otherwise.”

“He won’t be pleased with that.”

888

_So what are you, if you are not a god?_

_I don’t know. My gods did not say, but I know at least that I shall not fall. What I do next is for me to decide._

_Do you feel better about facing the future, at least?_

_Not exactly. I remain powerless, and that frightens me, but I don’t suppose I have any choice. You had best succeed in this scheme of yours, Mandus. It’s my only chance to do something useful in the world, though the gods know it won’t go far enough._

_It may go far indeed for the people we employ. Steady work and fair treatment can change a great deal._

_But it won’t stop the wars._

_No, and it isn’t your burden to stop them, only to do what you can._

_And you cannot bring back your children. You can only do what good you may._

_So you see, we do understand each other. Amaya seemed to imply that._

_Tell me, Mandus, who do you think she was?_

_I don’t think she was Mayahuel. I don’t think she was the God of the Bible either, or any god, at least not an omniscient one. She knew many things about me, but not everything. I think she was very close to divine nonetheless. Perhaps an angel or a messenger. You may meet her yourself someday: she promised to stay nearby. I must say, as much as I learned from her, I’m eager to be home again._

_There we agree. Gods, I desperately need a bath._

_Well, you’ll be home before I will, I suppose, so you’ll have the house to yourself. Can I trust you to make the final preparations for reopening and keep out of trouble?_

_To the former, certainly. To the latter, perhaps not. What do you consider trouble?_

_Your exile has not curbed your deceitfulness, I see._

_Deceitfulness? I have never deceived you, except where my work of saving the world necessitated it._

_You know perfectly well what I mean: no explosions, no murders, no mysterious disappearances._

_Some final repairs, then._

_If you confine your repairs to the mundane. When I return, I expect to find the reactor dismantled, as I left it._

_Really, what could I do with you prying into my thoughts every other moment?_

_You would find a way. You’ve always been a clever child._

_I am not a child._

_You most certainly are, and I am your father, if you’ll have me. God knows you could use someone to look after you._

_And if I decide I do not need a father?_

_Then I think you would be wrong. This journey has shown us that we can accomplish more together than apart, has it not?_

_Perhaps, but I told you, I am irredeemably selfish._

_Would a selfish man have stayed near me while I spoke to my children at the temple, and all through the previous night?_

_I've grown tired of your grief, Mandus. I simply wanted to see an end to it. Of course, you couldn’t manage that even with my support._

_No, but I believe I made progress. Is that really the only reason you stayed with me?_

_It is._

_You used to be a better liar, my old friend._

END ARC III


	19. The Innocent

ARC IV: THE GATHERING IN

March-April 1900

_I climb in stillness now. Blue water runs in my veins now I am clean. I carry the knife of this factory, the bowl of this mill. I am come to collect you from your fields and your furnaces. I will gather you into the white clouds. I will gather you to me, and I will take you home._

~ Oswald Mandus, 31 December 1899 _  
_

* * *

18\. The Innocent

The trawler captain is somewhat surprised, upon returning to the Hebridean island, to find the Engineer as alive and well as ever.

The Engineer departs, windburnt and a bit thinner than before but without regrets. When he walked back to the bothy the morning after his vision, he was not altogether disappointed to find that there were neither candles on the beach nor mythical diagrams in the caves. He suspects that the fire tower, too, will fade away. That night was a miracle, brief and precious and personal. He will not ask it to last.

He decides not to use the paint from the wrecked boat. It would be vulgar to spoil the island’s natural beauty. Besides, he has already made a far more intimate mark on this place, and it on him.

The train journey home still makes him claustrophobic, and he doesn’t enjoy the company of his fellow passengers one bit, but in his heart he is more at peace than he was on the way north. As before, he spends much of the time dozing, dreaming of the island and his gods and his machinery. He even manages to order a cup of tea from the woman pushing the refreshments trolley without feeling contaminated by the interaction. Before he knows it, he is jolted awake by his last train coming to a stop at Euston Station.

Once he is back in the manor, he leaves his pack on his bedroom floor to be dealt with later and heads straight to the bath. When he has scrubbed off the layer of grime and salt that no amount of trips to the spring by the caves could dislodge, he falls into bed, lying fully dressed atop the covers, and sleeps deep and long. His hair dries into all manner of curls that he has to coax out later, but he doesn’t care. He is clean, he is home, and he is not nothing.

At Mandus’s direction, he places advertisements for workers and responds to the last few suppliers and investors who have written since his departure. All he can do then is wait.

He spends a good deal of time wandering amidst his engines and imagining what it will be like to see the flywheels whirling and pistons pumping once again. He has been bereft of power for so long. It is only by sheer force of will that he has kept himself upright these past months, resisting cold and discomfort and illness. This place is a cathedral of industry, with engines instead of gothic arches and carven pillars. He will gladly become its priest once more.

Ah, there is an idea: he is not a god, but he can still be a priest. He can still be the heart of the machine.

It makes him ache to think of the future and of the power he has lost, though. He suspects it always will, and he cannot imagine how it will feel as the wars draw nearer. Even attempting to look that far ahead induces dizziness.

Still, he is learning. He even helps the hired engineers set up the new machining tools and conducts interviews with other prospective workers. It’s still so difficult talking to other human beings. He can’t help but feel an inborn sense of condescension and disgust, and he knows he must seem very curt. Even so, though many are taken a bit aback, no one runs from the house in tears.

For a few glorious weeks he has the house to himself, and he treats himself like royalty. Mandus can, of course, peer into the Engineer’s thoughts whenever he likes, but he still feels a wonderful sense of being back in his own territory. He commits many small rebellions: wearing Mandus’s good pocket watch, playing Mandus’s phonograph cylinders, drinking Mandus’s wine. (Only once, though: body doesn’t seem to know what to do with alcohol, and the last thing he remembers before waking up on the floor with a headache is laughing heartily at nothing at all.) He is Mandus, he reasons, so this is _his_ house, too. Why not indulge in it?

The Engineer is determined not to be trampled when Mandus comes home. They will be equals, or there will be no alliance at all.

Then Mandus returns, and the status quo shifts.

The Engineer is reclining in the parlor with an aria from _Agrippina_ on the phonograph and his feet on the ottoman when he hears the heavy front doors open. Shortly thereafter, Mandus comes in, pack still on his shoulders.

The Engineer’s eyes narrow critically. The man looks better than he did when he left for Mexico, that’s for certain. Though there is still a shadow of sorrow in his face, his eyes are brighter, his color healthier, and his bearing straighter. This is not a welcome development: a newly revitalized Mandus may be difficult to deal with.

They stare at each other from across the room for a moment. They broke down certain barriers during their pilgrimages, even forged the fragile beginnings of trust, but that doesn’t seem to matter just now. Now that they see each other face-to-face again, all the old resentments and suspicions bubble back up like the water in a re-fired boiler.

“You look…well,” the Engineer mutters at the same time Mandus says, “You’re thin, aren’t you?”

They both pause awkwardly, each waiting for the other to go on.

“I’m very glad I went,” says Mandus in the end. His voice, normally so low and somber, sounds different now: stronger, rejuvenated. “I wouldn’t say I’m all right – I doubt I ever will be – but I can manage now. I can live.”

 _Time to establish myself, take back my power_ , the Engineer thinks. _Son I may be, but I will not be trodden underfoot._

“Good,” the Engineer says, without moving from his seat. “As I told you, I find your endless mourning very tiresome.”

Mandus, infuriatingly, smiles. “I feel much the same about yours. We are agreed, then. We both have work to do; we shall have no time for grief in the days to come.” He turns and walks out of the room, calling over his shoulder, “We’ll have orders to fill before we know it, and we would do well to make a good first impression.”

The Engineer is left scowling impotently at an empty room. Mandus’s voice echoes back to him from halfway up the stairs: “Goodness, I need a bath!”

No, he doesn’t trust this one bit. This might be dangerous. Mandus’s heightened sense of purpose and optimism may not last, of course. It may be very fragile indeed, but even so…it’s almost alarming.

Still, Mandus is right about one thing: the first days of their new machine shop will be the most important, and it’s imperative that the factory prove its worth. To do that, they shall have to put aside their differences and work together as partners.

A baptism of fire in more ways than one.

888

Mandus’s transformation continues apace, much to the Engineer’s astonishment. He knows Mandus to be reserved, even shy. Yet when Mandus speaks to the men and women who nervously present themselves in his office, he is easy, gracious, and understanding. The unskilled among them are entirely too conscious of the shining mahogany desk, the silvered fountain pens, the rich green carpet, the medallion around the ceiling fan (carved like the Aztec sun stone). They are dressed in their best, yet they still seem to feel too shabby to touch anything.

Mandus quickly makes it plain that they need not be so overawed. One young man is particularly preoccupied by the print of Turner’s _Rain, Steam and Speed_ hanging behind the desk. When Mandus catches him staring, the lad asks hesitantly why everything in the painting looks so misty, even the train. Mandus tells him that it’s meant to show how fast the locomotive is traveling, becoming as much a force of nature as the rain and the water heated to steam in its boiler. Mandus isn’t sure how much of this is understood, but the young man is plainly surprised to have received a serious answer to his question.

Only Mandus knows in his most secret heart how difficult it is to put on such a performance. Fighting class consciousness and his own introversion is hard enough. He also struggles against the ever-present knowledge that whatever troubles these workers may have, they have not killed their children and nearly destroyed the world.

Still, as with the railway men on the ship to Veracruz, Mandus finds his way with honesty and sincerity. He tells his prospective employees how much they will be paid and what hours they will be expected to keep. He does not deny that these terms are little better than elsewhere, though he hopes earnestly to improve them if business goes well. He also tells them that he means to treat them fairly, allow them a voice in their own affairs, even work alongside them should they need an extra pair of hands. He knows the principles of machining, and he is eager to learn the applications.

Some of the workers accept his promises. Many more are suspicious of the Mandus brothers, sitting perfectly groomed behind the desk in their elegant waistcoats and cravats and watch chains. Mandus pays special attention to these skeptics. He asks them a bit about themselves, memorizes their names and faces: which ones look older than they are, which ones wear their hardships heavily, which ones are cynical and which ones still harbor a spark of hope. He knows nothing he can say will win them over, though his candor and genuine interest may help. He will need to prove himself through action.

The interviews for machinists and clerical staff are easier. There is still a class difference, but these people are educated and skilled. The maintenance workers, too, might have been a simple matter if not for the Engineer. He scrutinizes with especial closeness those who would seek to know the inner workings of his precious, sacred mechanisms. 

For all that he seems terribly particular, Mandus isn’t quite sure what the Engineer is looking for. Some of the people he chooses are experienced, and others have almost no training – a wide-eyed Welsh girl of sixteen, for instance, who looks like she might cry at any moment. He treats men and women no differently. Mandus can feel him reaching out with mind and soul, seeking the essential spark that sets apart those who will treat his machines with reverence, intuition, and love.

But mostly, the Engineer just intimidates them with his dark, dark stare. The ones who bear up against this rise in his estimation. If they can face him now, when they are unaccustomed to him, they can work together successfully.

Slowly, the company coalesces: a ragtag bunch of misfits and unfortunates, students fresh from university or trade schools, veterans of industry, indigents who know too much about how to survive, adolescents seeking after-school work – all very bright, all very determined.

888

Mandus is not precisely looking for a family, though he dearly hopes he will find friends and companions amongst his new workers. Perhaps through them, he can learn how to live again. However, family is indeed what comes to him one morning, when the Engineer answers the bell to find a small girl on the step.

“Sweep the walk for you, sir?” she asks brightly, gesturing from her broom to the fall of last autumn’s leaves cluttering the cobbles.

The Engineer eyes the girl critically. He notes several things at once. First, though she is small and a bit ragged, she doesn’t look as sickly as most street urchins. That means she has a benefactor, or else she is smart enough to make a decent way for herself. The Engineer suspects the latter. Beneath her cap and her nest of red-brown curls, her eyes are sharp, observant, and full of spirit. Second, she doesn’t seem at all afraid of him. The Engineer has seen grown men flinch beneath his stare, yet her expectant gaze isn’t wavering.

"You may,” he says, slightly put off.

“Thank you, sir!” The girl tips her hat and puts up her broom, but she doesn’t move. Instead, she glances across the courtyard toward the factory offices. The Engineer knows at once that she’s seen the advertisement for workers in the window. “Erm, sir…? Would you still be needing more hands?”

“You won’t get more than errand-running,” the Engineer says firmly. “This is a machine shop, lass. The equipment is far too dangerous for a little thing like you, and Mr. Mandus is very opposed to –”

"To what, now?”

Mandus comes up beside the Engineer in the doorway and looks down at the girl. She gives him a little bob and a winning smile, and Mandus’s heart squeezes painfully.

The Engineer notices this at once. He narrows his eyes. “To child labor.”

Mandus kneels down and says kindly, “Who might you be?”

“Abigail Ross, sir.”

“Such a pretty name.”

"She would like a position here,” the Engineer says flatly. He can already see Mandus warming to the girl. Mandus’s desperate need for a child gnaws at the Engineer’s own stomach. No doubt Mandus sees this girl’s sudden appearance as some sort of divine intervention.

"Would she?” Mandus’s voice is indulgent, his eyes never leaving Abigail’s face. “What can you do, Abigail Ross?”

 _No. No, no, no._ Mandus has signed on a few errand boys, but they’re old enough not to break things and get into mischief. This little slip of a girl can’t be more than nine or ten, and the Engineer can tell she’s sharp and brave. She’ll be exactly the type to poke her nose into things she shouldn’t and ask endless, irritating questions.

Meanwhile, Abigail has drawn herself up smartly. “I know my letters, sir!” she says, her voice eager. “I can take messages and sweep and dust and keep things ever so clean.”

“I told her you wouldn’t have her near the machinery,” the Engineer tries to interject. “The Factory Acts won’t allow –”

“No, I’m afraid you’re too small yet, but we can find something else for you. Did you learn to read and write at school, or did your parents teach you?”

“I haven’t got parents, sir.” There is no emotion in this: Abigail has obviously never known her family. “The nuns at the orphanage taught me.”

The Engineer closes his eyes. That’s done it. He feels the pieces click into place in Mandus’s mind. Here is an orphan girl in need of care, a perfect opportunity for Mandus to carry out his mission of benevolence and become a father again.

"One moment, if you please,” the Engineer says curtly. He pulls Mandus into the house and shuts the door.

“What?” Mandus says, as if he truly does not know what’s wrong. “Surely you can’t object to –”

“Mandus, I know you.” The Engineer looks his counterpart squarely in the eyes. “I know what you want more than anything else. If you hire her, you will want to feed her and house her and keep her for your own.”

“And why shouldn’t I? Afraid she’ll make off with the silver or poison the wine?” Mandus’s arms are crossed, shoulders squared, eyes full of a determined light the Engineer has not seen in a very long time.

“You don’t think you’re being the slightest bit impulsive?”

“Of course I am, but it’s right!” Mandus’s chest rises and falls rapidly. “I’ve spent so much of my life playing other men’s games, putting on masks in the hope of pleasing the ‘right people.’ If I do this, it will be for me and for her and no one else, and because it is _right_. It feels _right_. She is not a mystical artifact I stumbled across in the jungle. She is an orphan girl looking for work and a bit of kindness, for heaven’s sake!”

“Then hire her if you must, let her run messages, but leave it there.”

Mandus glares at him. “Why should I?”

The Engineer sighs deeply. “Because you aren’t ready. You haven’t yet reconciled with the deaths of your own children, not completely, and already you want another? You aren’t doing this because she needs a father; you’re doing it to ease your own heart. That can only hurt you. Don’t look to me to hold your hand when you feel you’ve betrayed your sons!”

This strikes a nerve. Mandus blinks rapidly, as if stung, then composes himself with a deep breath.

“I cannot turn my back on her now that I know her situation,” he says. His voice betrays no hint of the needles pricking him inside – the sorrow and the shame and the frustration that the Engineer is right. “She can help us with the household chores if she won't accept charity.”

The Engineer’s eyebrows crease. “During the day. She will go back to wherever she came from when the day is done.”

“Do you assume she has a place to return to?”

If Abigail is out asking to sweep up leaves, she is not currently in an orphanage’s care. If anyone is looking after her, that person is as penniless as she is. Her dwelling-place is likely to be an insalubrious hovel at best and an alleyway at worst. There are laws to protect the children of the poor, but they only lead to the workhouse.

Mandus shakes his head helplessly. The Engineer’s cautions are more than valid, but Mandus is in the grip of something far more instinctive and imperative than logic.

“I can’t leave her,” he says plaintively.

Mandus is strange and stubborn when it comes to children. The Engineer knows that the more he pushes, the more Mandus will dig in his heels. The Engineer was beaten the moment Mandus looked into Abigail’s hazel eyes. Gods, if he had only just paid her off to sweep the walk and shut the door! Now there will be a curious child around the house, and he will never have a moment’s peace…

 _You once wished to protect the innocent, if ever you found such_ , says a voice in his mind.

 _By delivering them, not housing them_ , says another, colder one.

The Engineer fixes Mandus with a glare. “There are institutions for orphan children. She can stay only until we find her one. She is not your daughter.”

But the Engineer knows from the radiant, almost painful joy in Mandus’s eyes that Abigail won’t be leaving anytime soon.

888

Abigail – or Abbie, as she likes to be called – settles in better than anyone had hoped.

The house must seem a palace to her, with its many paintings and soft carpets and rich furnishings. The first time she sees Mandus turn on the electric lights, she jumps a little, then asks curiously, “How does it do that?” Indeed, she is interested in all the technological contrivances around the manor, from the telephone to the phonographs to the company lorries, and she is not satisfied with simple explanations.

She keeps well out of the way and sets herself her own chores. Earning her keep seems to be a sort of survival instinct for her. More than once, Mandus and the Engineer return from interviews to find picture frames dusted and straightened, fireplaces swept clean, and cushions plumped. They never have to tell her not to go into the bedrooms without permission. She understands intuitively that these are private places.

The Engineer never shows Abbie how angry he is at the world, but he knows she can sense it. He wonders what she thinks of him.

She likes Mandus, though. He lets her help him cook meals and teaches her about clever inventions and pats her head when she’s done good work. Sometimes, on rare occasions, he tucks her into bed, and he is so gentle that it’s as if he’s afraid to break her. She looks a bit surprised the first time this happens, unused to such care. Mandus smiles sadly and says, “I won’t hurt you, little one. You’re safe with me.”

Children like her do not know much gentleness, and so they don’t trust it to last. Mandus can feel Abbie fixing every one of his kind words in her mind should she need them to sustain her later, like squirreling away scraps of food.

None of this is forever, of course. Orphans only find mysterious benefactors in books; this fairytale castle isn’t her home. The Engineer does not want her here, and it is only Abbie’s industriousness that allows her to stay. Mandus knows that the kinder he is to her, the more she will hope her sad fate might change.

But he cannot help himself. He needs fatherhood.

888

“Surely you don’t mean to send her away.”

It is some nights later, and the machine shop’s opening is impending. Mandus and the Engineer are sitting downstairs, contemplating their enterprise and all the many recent changes. Mandus is the picture of serenity, leaning back in his armchair and reading one of his technical journals. When he speaks these words, however, his façade crumbles.

“I believe I must,” the Engineer replies, looking at Mandus from his seat at the piano across the room. “I can feel how ill at ease you are with her sleeping upstairs.”

They are housing Abigail in Edwin and Enoch’s bedroom, the only place in the manor suited to children. The alternative was the attic nursery, and that was somehow even worse. That place, the site of Edwin and Enoch’s infancy, is a sanctuary, where nothing has changed in years. Any alteration would be sacrilege. If childhood is precious because it is fleeting, then babyhood is sacred because it is yet more ephemeral. Even so, it is as the Engineer warned: Mandus feels uncomfortably as though he has replaced his sons with a stranger he has only just met. But what else can he do? The girl has to sleep somewhere.

Presently, Mandus scoffs. “Am I to believe you are trying to protect me?”

Is he? The Engineer still doesn’t know. Rather than face the question, he answers with his usual callousness: “Of course not. It’s only that I have no wish to hear you agonize about this for the next year.” (That story is wearing thin; soon he’ll need another.) “I don’t mean to say that you can never have another child, just _not yet_. We both know it’s far too soon.”

In his heart, Mandus knows this is true, though he still tries to tell himself he is not replacing his sons. He still loves them and misses them as much as always, but there is room in his heart for more children. He has not forfeited the privilege of fatherhood, has he? What happened in Mexico was a moment of insanity brought on by the Orb, unreflective of his true character. Surely he can trust himself not to reprise Edwin and Enoch's deaths, to keep Abigail safe. No, he doesn’t deserve happiness, but if he can help an orphan girl…

“You aren’t doing this for her. I told you.”

Mandus feels the presence in his mind all too late. His head jerks up. “Do not trespass in my thoughts –”

“And all this, Mandus,” the Engineer goes on, “this grand plan of yours…” He turns around, caresses the piano keys with his fingertips before playing the lilting opening movement of Schumann’s _Kinderszenen_. “Is it for the workers, or for you? No one runs a business as you plan to. Owners and workers are not friends. If you do not rule them with an iron hand and make them fear your authority, they will never be productive.”

Mandus refuses to be baited, though he knows the Engineer has chosen a piece from _Scenes from Childhood_ for just that reason. “Robert Owen did it at his mill in New Lanark,” he says steadily. “He was personable to his workers, provided a pleasant environment and education –”

“Robert Owen took ownership of New Lanark in 1800. Times have changed.”

“All right, what about William Lever? He established the Port Sunlight soap factory, what, little more than ten years ago?”

"William Lever does not give his workers a voice. He may provide them with all the cultural enrichment they can manage, but he is an absolute authority. He decides what his workers need, not they. You, my friend, will have little short of anarchy if you allow the operatives to speak their minds as you did in the interviews. And for what?”

"I don’t think I know what you –”

"Oh, yes, you do.” The Engineer stops playing abruptly, leaving the melody unfinished. “It’s just the same with that girl. You aren’t really giving your workers so much rein because you think it will improve their situations. You are doing it in the hope that they will love you for it, and so ease your conscience.”

Mandus folds his arms. “And why can both not be true? Does one necessarily cancel out the other?”

“No, not necessarily, but one may cancel out your profits.”

"I don’t believe I must rule with fear to ensure a productive workforce. That was my father’s way, but in my experience, it only dampens spirits. Trust and mutual interest are best. That’s how it was in the old days of small manufacturing and handwork, wasn’t it? I don’t mean to let the workers run wild, you know. I will set my standards and hold to them, but a bit of human decency will do no harm.”

“Give a man an inch, and he will take a mile…”

Mandus shuts his journal and tosses it down on the end table with a disappointingly quiet slap. “Can’t you be optimistic, for once in your life?”

“Not with all I’ve seen of humanity.”

"You’ve never given humanity a chance!”

Thus, Mandus is angry and the Engineer is unfeeling. Now that they both have their full strength and spirits back, they can argue all night. Mandus does not want that, especially now that Abigail is with them. There must be peace in the house.

Mandus stands up and primly smooths his clothes. “You’ve never given _me_ a chance, either,” he says, and leaves the room without another word.

Sitting alone at the piano, the Engineer is suddenly furious. “I _did_ ,” he mutters to himself. “I did, and you stabbed me in the heart!”

Without really knowing why, he feels his eyes begin to sting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovely people! If you've made it this far, you're a little less than halfway through this story. Our protagonists will still have plenty of challenges from here on out, though things will finally be looking up. If you would like to receive the requisite angst along with such wholesome content as Mandus trying really hard to be a good employer/father, summer outings, sarcastic Mandus-Engineer banter, a slice of life in the new machine shop, and a Mandus family Christmas, please stick around!
> 
> Both Robert Owen and William Lever were real nineteenth-century industrialists as described.
> 
> ["Rain, Steam and Speed" by J.M.W. Turner (1844)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Turner_-_Rain%2C_Steam_and_Speed_-_National_Gallery_file.jpg)
> 
> The piece the Engineer plays in that last scene, [Movement 1 from "Kinderszenen" by Robert Schumann (1838).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InA4womSarQ)


	20. Coming Together

19\. Coming Together

Somewhere amidst the interviews, they decide to engage a housekeeper. Though Mandus and the Engineer are relatively self-sufficient, they won’t have much time to keep the house straightened up once they start work. On any given day, they may need someone to make the beds, do the washing, and help with shopping and preparing meals.

Their most promising candidate is a young Irishwoman named Grace Teague. She has served in a noble house for much of her life, working her way up from housemaid to lady’s maid, and her references are excellent. She might still be with that household had the family not fallen on hard times.

“Before that, I helped in my family’s butcher shop,” she says, “so I can manage a knife. I can cook as well: nothing posh, but you’ll never go hungry.”

As with all his prospective employees, Mandus is gracious. “That’s just as well. I don’t expect to be entertaining any time soon. I can lend you a hand in the kitchen if ever you need it.”

Grace blinks, then quickly composes herself. “But…sir, the cooking isn’t your worry.”

“Not at all – I enjoy it. I’m not very clever at it, admittedly, but I spent a good deal of time with the household cooks when I was a boy bored with my lessons. I learned enough to stay alive.”

For a moment, Grace looks like she wants to say something like, _I wouldn’t expect that of a man like you. Men like you don’t mix with folk like me_ , but of course she doesn’t. Instead, she smiles good-naturedly. “Staying alive is a useful skill.”

Her face immediately falls, as if she doesn’t know why she allowed herself even this small amount of levity and now expects to pay for it.

“You may speak freely,” Mandus tells her. “In this house, frankness and good humor are not sins.”

The Engineer throws him a meaningful look. The word _anarchy_ floats to the surface of Mandus’s mind, but he pointedly ignores it.

“You would not be entirely on your own,” he goes on. “We are both more than willing to help keep house. You would mainly be responsible for finishing up whatever daily chores we don’t manage on our own: washing, running errands, changing bedding, helping in the kitchen, that sort of thing. I have a ward of sorts as well, a girl named Abigail, who will be glad to help you.”

Mandus grimaces faintly. This sounds like a great deal to ask, but of course he knows it isn’t. The only thing at all unusual about this is his willingness to help keep up the house. It stems primarily from his desire to leave himself with no time to brood.

If Grace is startled, she does not show it. “Is there anything else, sir?”

There isn’t, really, except for the matter of wages. Mandus is averse to discussing money (unfortunate for a man of business). It always seems rather vulgar.

He casts about for something else to add. “I’m afraid we are rather a male household.”

“I grew up with brothers, sir. I’m used to it.”

In any ordinary interview, Mandus would tell Grace what she is to be paid and dismiss her to await his decision. He doesn’t this time Suddenly, looking at her dark red hair and freckled face, it strikes Mandus how this Irishwoman must see him: a symbol of the English upper class, the oppressors of her people. He doesn’t know why, but he wants desperately to rectify this.

“Where in Ireland are you from?” he asks. (The Engineer closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose at this unnecessary cordiality.)

“North Tipperary, sir.”

“Near the sea?”

“Er, no, sir, North Tipperary is in the mid-west, but it’s very green and lovely. There’s Keeper Hill and old castles… I’ve not been back since I was young, but I still remember it all.”

Well, now Mandus has shown his ignorance. What was he thinking, asking if North Tipperary was on the sea? County Cork, probably. He only knows of Cork because of its associations with the movement for Irish home rule. Most of the English upper class would likely say the same. When they think of the Irish, they think of rouges at best and dangerous radicals at worst. Now all he has to do is insult the papacy, and that will settle Grace’s opinion of Oswald Mandus.

On the other hand, should he be making any assumptions about what Grace thinks? Do they not perpetuate his own ignorance?

“I…I should like to see it someday,” he says. Though he means it sincerely, it sounds feeble.

As it happens, Grace doesn’t seem to be thinking about English tyranny at all. She offers him a genuine smile, apparently trusting that Mandus speaks in good faith. “I very much hope you have the chance, sir.”

Presently, the Engineer, who is somewhat unsettled by Mandus’s need for Grace’s approval, decides to interject. He unfolds himself languidly from the corner of Mandus’s desk and fixes the woman with his penetrating stare.

“You must have many reasons to hate England,” he says coolly.

Grace looks up at him, her green eyes meeting his own. There is a flicker of fear, and then quiet confidence. She knows he isn’t wrong; he can see that, and yet…

“I try not to hate anyone, sir. It only makes things worse.”

Mandus glares at his counterpart. _For God’s sake, man, why not ask her if she approves of the Fenian Brotherhood?_

The Engineer does not answer. He is taken quite aback by Grace’s words, for her creed is just the opposite of his own. Hate has always been his fuel, has always made sense. Hate is strength, protection, self-assurance. What would he do, for instance, if he didn’t hate Ma –

No, no, those are dangerous waters.

“You live up to your name, then,” the Engineer says softly.

“I do try, sir.” Grace dips her head in deference to something unseen. “God calls me to love.”

“Well said,” Mandus affirms, with one last sidelong scowl at the Engineer. _Don’t torment the poor woman._

The Engineer does not dignify this with a response. Instead, he turns back to Grace and asks, “Do you never find yourself tempted to hate?”

Grace eyes him steadily. If she finds this bizarre, as she surely must, she does not say so. “Of course I do, sir, but I try to resist. Hate is easy. Love is not.”

In an ordinary household, such forthrightness might be seen as impudence, even insubordination, the mark of a young woman with ideas above her station. But this is not an ordinary household. The Engineer has heard precisely what he needs to hear: this is a person who can hold her ground, a person with voice and convictions (albeit misguided ones). He has no patience for interlopers like Mandus, but nor does he desire shrinking, cowardly menials. To him, the gravest of sinners are those who turn away when the road darkens.

Though that’s strange, given that he himself tried to destroy the world rather than face –

No. Not now.

He looks at Mandus. _Are we decided, then?_

_You don’t seem to like her._

_On the contrary, my dear sir. This one is not a pig._

888

From that day onward, Grace Teague is part of the household.

For all her modesty, her cooking is easy to get used to. She quickly demonstrates a gift for making hearty, nourishing meals out of whatever she has at hand. For Mandus and the Engineer, who have been living for months on bits of cold meat and cheese and their own limited culinary abilities, it seems gourmet. Abbie, once she is convinced the food won’t run out, proves to have an appetite too large for her tiny body.

It is in the kitchen that Grace and Mandus begin to get to know each other. He catches her by surprise when he comes down the stairs one day and offers her a hand with the vegetables she’s chopping up for a meat pie.

She tries to protest at first. “Really, sir, it’s not your trouble,” she says, awkwardly tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Mandus considers how to answer this. He could offer several explanations. He is trying to get used to talking with people who know nothing of New Year’s Eve. He is desperate to keep himself busy because he has many, many doubts that will devour him if he thinks too much. He wants to prove he is not an English imperialist who smirks at political cartoons of Irish ape-men. But he can say none of this aloud.

“I’m not above it,” he says instead. He takes a knife from the drawer, slides a batch of peeled potatoes onto a cutting board, and sets to work.

Mandus is more comfortable with meat than vegetables, but it soothes him to hear his knife thunking rhythmically against the cutting board. He likes to watch Grace work, too. When she moves on to the chicken, Mandus can tell from the way she finds the meat’s faint grain that she hasn’t forgotten the lessons of her youth in the family butcher shop. As a man who knows the trade, it’s lovely to watch.

Amidst the clacking of their knives, Mandus starts a conversation.

“Your hands still remember the way,” he ventures.

Grace doesn’t look up from the carrots she’s now peeling and laying out to chop, but she does smile a bit. “That’s exactly what it was: my family’s way. There’s an art to meat, I think, more than most folk know.”

“Absolutely – at least, there is if it’s done properly. Any fool can hack with a cleaver, but to keep it neat and tender is a skill.”

“You learned from your father?”

“From his workers, when this was still an abattoir. It was rather a shock for a sheltered young man. My muscles ached for days, but I didn’t regret it one bit. My father did. I think he was afraid it would turn me into some sort of modern Ten-Hour agitator or factory reformer. It didn’t, exactly, but it gave me an appreciation for what our workers endured every day. I’ve…recently lost my taste for the trade.”

Grace’s knife pauses. “Sir, may I speak plainly?”

“In this house, always.”

She’s still chopping the carrots, but more slowly and thoughtfully now. “I know a few of the women you brought on,” she begins. “When I told them I meant to take a position here, they said you were a bit…” She pauses, struggles visibly with herself.

“Strange?” Mandus raises a good-humored brow.

Grace lets out her breath, relieved that she needn’t commit what would be, ordinarily, an unforgivable indiscretion. She laughs a bit nervously. “Yes, sir, but…in a good sort of way. They told me how you spoke to them in their interviews: that you were a perfect gentleman and then some, answered their questions, tried to get to know them. No one does that, not for our sort. I could hardly believe their stories, if I may be so bold, but now…” She gestures at the pile of neatly chopped potatoes and onions on Mandus’s cutting board and shakes her head.

Mandus sets down his knife, looks at Grace. “Thank you for that,” he says softly. “I intend to make this an exception among places of work, and it gladdens me to know it’s been noticed.”

“Oh, yes, sir, very much. Folk like us never forget a kindness.”

“And it seems you are something of an exception yourself. You rather shocked my…my brother, you know, when you told him you try not to hate.”

"Oh…that.” Grace tucks her hair back again, suddenly intent on her work. “I oughtn’t’ve said that.”

“You were only being honest, and he did all he could to provoke you. But no, I don’t mean to say that your behavior was shocking. It was your very lack of hatred. My brother…” (It feels so strange to use that word for the Engineer, but to the world he and Mandus look like twins.) “He is learning, but he doesn’t like people much. Hate is comforting to him – it seems to comfort many people these days. But nevertheless, I happen to know that he gives you a great deal of credit for standing your ground in his presence. You mustn’t take it to heart if he is ever sharp with you.”

Mandus doesn’t need to look into Grace’s mind as he does the Engineer’s to gauge her response. It’s just a flicker, but the look that crosses her face is revealing enough: a self-assured hardness that says, _I know his sort: bullies_.

The Engineer can indeed be a bully. Intimidation and power are the only languages he knows. But then, there’s also his graceless, rough kindness, like when he refused to stay with Mandus after that nightmare but left the old lantern on the bedside table. No, he doesn’t know how to be gentle, not yet. But the instincts are there: the marks of his humanity, the traits he inherited from Mandus.

Presently, Grace looks up at Mandus and smiles, a determined light in her eyes. “I think he and I will do just fine, sir.”

888

Grace adapts to her new position with remarkable ease for one who served the same family most of her life. It quickly becomes apparent why her former household held her in such high regard. She is keenly observant and her memory is excellent, allowing her to learn her new employers’ habits to the letter. Once, the Engineer returns to his bedroom after breakfast to find it made up so perfectly that he almost suspects he did it himself and forgot about it. Grace has left everything just as he likes it: his duvet smoothed and turned back halfway, his pillows plumped, his shawl-blanket folded neatly at the foot of the bed, his bed curtains gathered into their holders.

Grace does her work flawlessly and loves Abbie like a younger sister, but in Mandus’s opinion she is too self-effacing. Indeed, at times she is nearly invisible; the only signs of her presence are the neatness and order she leaves behind. Abbie appears to be taking after her, too. The Engineer doesn’t mind this at all, but Mandus wishes the two of them wouldn’t hide themselves away. Though Mandus hasn’t admitted it to himself yet, the Engineer has it right: he wants the girl and the young woman to be his family. At the very least, he is determined to make the Engineer see that Abbie needn’t be sent away.

He has an opportunity shortly before the machine shop opens. He is sitting in the parlor, where he always goes to quell his racing thoughts before bed, listening to that Beethoven sonata the Engineer loves and hoping it will make him sleepy. Grace is finishing some washing up in the kitchen, but she has apparently released Abbie. The girl is presently sitting on the rug, looking up at the phonograph cylinder on the end table with rapt attention. She is not yet bold enough to sit beside Mandus on the sofa. He wishes she would, but he also thinks his heart might burst with grief and memory if she put her little head on his shoulder.

His consciousness slips, returning only when he sees the reddish glow beyond his closed lids flicker a little. The incandescent in the lamp must be going, he thinks irritably.

But it isn’t the lamp at all. Abbie is standing there, eyes fixed on the elegantly papered wall across from her, moving her hands forward and backward in front of the lamp. She stops abruptly when she sees Mandus watching her and takes a step back.

“It’s all right,” he assures her. “Were you trying to make shadows?”

Abbie nods. “A girl at the orphanage knew how. I wanted to learn, but she wouldn’t tell.”

“Well, that was rude of her, wasn’t it?” Mandus glances at the elaborate pattern on the wallpaper, then back at the lamp. “This won’t do. You’ll need a plain backdrop to start with.”

Abbie looks at him uncertainly, as if she suspects the seriousness with which Mandus is treating this matter might be a cruel joke. On the contrary, Mandus knew a workman on his father’s killing floor who had a gift for shadow puppetry. He taught a much younger Oswald Mandus some of his art during their break times. It’s been a long while, but Mandus might just remember enough to satisfy Abbie.

He meets the girl’s clever eyes. “Shall we see if Grace has something we can use?”

They go down to the kitchen together. Mandus only just resists the temptation to hold Abbie’s hand. ( _She is not your daughter_ , echoes the Engineer’s voice in his mind, and of course she isn’t. Mandus doesn’t deserve her.) There they learn that Grace has a sheet hanging up to dry in the scullery. After explaining their purpose and promising not to wrinkle it, they collect it and return to the parlor as a trio. Abbie takes hold of the end table and pushes it to the center of the room, while Mandus and Grace set to pinning up the sheet over one of the windows.

Just then, the Engineer comes in, hair damp from the bath.

All three conspirators stop where they are.

The Engineer takes in Mandus and Grace, arms still upraised to their clothespins. He watches Abbie dragging the end table to the middle of the room, her small body straining, the lamp rocking precariously. Then he sits down on the sofa and tucks a throw smartly around his shoulders. “I won’t ask.”

“Ignore him,” Mandus advises. “He has all the good humor of a grave-keeper.”

When the endeavor is done, Grace folds her hands and asks, “Will there be anything else, sir?” There was light in her face a moment ago, even a bit of mischief, but now it’s gone. She is once again the self-effacing servant.

For some reason he cannot explain, Mandus doesn’t like this.

“Yes, there is,” he says firmly. “If you are not otherwise occupied, I would be glad if you would stay and watch.”

Across the room, the Engineer tucks his legs up on the couch and settles in to watch Mandus make a fool of himself.

Grace catches a glimpse of this and shakes her head. “I couldn’t, sir. It’s not my place.”

“Please, you’ve earned a bit of ease.”

Though she plainly finds this unorthodox, just as she did when Mandus helped her prepare supper, Grace settles down on the rug and smooths her skirts. Mandus joins her at a polite distance, with Abbie beside him.

He thinks only once, and only briefly, of what his old friends from the club would say if they could see him now. He doesn’t much care.

 _You’re absurd_ , the Engineer mutters in Mandus’s mind. He doesn’t care about that either.

Mandus starts out with something relatively simple: a rabbit. He does not precisely remember how to combine his hands into the shadow of a body, head, eye, and ears, but his muscles know the way. He puts out two of his fingers as the front paws, makes the rabbit dig. Abbie says nothing, but her delighted gasp is more than enough.

With a child’s joy to inspire him, Mandus reshapes his hands into a bird on a branch. He gives Grace a quiet instruction, and she delicately touches the bird’s back with her fingertips. In response, Mandus makes the feathers on the bird’s head lift and fall back into place. Grace laughs a low, enchanted laugh. She touches the bird’s back a few more times to see its crest rise and fall, seemingly forgetting for a moment how very strange it is for a gentleman to entertain his servants.

“More, sir,” Abbie murmurs eagerly. A cat rises from Mandus’s hands, tail wrapped primly around it, the tip curling a little. He makes the cat preen and stretch, even bend its head as if to lap up milk from Abbie’s hand. Mandus takes her fingers in his – their smallness makes his heart squeeze – and arranges them into the rabbit again. The girl is utterly charmed. Mandus’s rabbit and Abbie’s take turns digging industriously and patting each other’s heads with their front paws. The phonograph has stopped by now, but Abbie’s laughter is music enough.

Then, without warning, the Engineer is beside Mandus on the floor. Mandus and Abbie are looking a bit too much like father and daughter for his taste.

He makes the shadow of a dragon’s head. With one finger, he tracks its eye back and forth, following the movement of Mandus’s hand as he hesitantly pats the creature’s head. Although a tremor of disgust runs through the Engineer at every touch of Mandus’s fingertips, he does not pull away. Mandus opens his palm, and the dragon darts out its tongue to take a bit of imaginary food. Then its mouth opens wide and clamps down on Mandus’s hand, and the spell is broken. Abbie, of course, finds this highly amusing.

 _What are you doing?_ Mandus asks in thought, shaking his hand free. _I didn’t suppose you held with such frivolity. I thought you wanted Abigail to go._

_I do. The dragon wasn’t for her amusement._

_What, then? To warn me that you will bite the hand that feeds you? Or to show me that is all you know how to do?_

The Engineer stares at him for a moment, radiating indignity and a confused sort of fondness he is trying desperately to deny. Then he stands up and stalks back to the couch to wrap himself in his throw.

Abbie is trying to imitate the Engineer’s dragon, but she is clearly not oblivious to what has just transpired. She knows the Engineer’s mood has soured. Her eye falls on the blanket around his shoulders. “Cold, sir?” she asks.

“I am always cold, child,” comes the response from the shadows beyond the circle of lamplight.

 _In more ways than one_ , Mandus thinks, though Abbie appears to be giving the Engineer’s words very serious consideration. Mandus arranges her hands into the dragon, almost frightened once more at how small and fragile her fingers are. He thinks of how small Edwin and Enoch were when they died and lets Abbie’s hands go.

 _You are not the same now_ , he tells himself. _You are free of the Orb’s madness_. But another part of his mind whispers, _After what you’ve done, there is no second chance._

Childhood flightiness quickly takes hold of Abbie, and she is soon occupied with trying to “bite” anyone and anything with her dragon. This leaves Mandus to consider his situation. Here is Abigail, a girl utterly enchanted with the magic Mandus has shown her. Here is Grace, a servant with whom he shares the household chores. Here is the Engineer, who sat closer to Mandus tonight than he has since his illness. And here is Mandus himself, industrialist and father and widower and murderer and lover of machines, consorter with servants and factory hands, impulsive benefactor of bright-eyed orphan girls.

“Here is an insane asylum,” some would say. “Here is a utopian delusion,” others would declare.

Oswald Mandus says neither of these things. Nor does he say, “Here is a family.” It’s too hasty, too absurd, too undeserved. In his heart he knows that Abigail is not his daughter and Grace is not his friend and the Engineer… God alone knows what the Engineer is or is not.

But tonight, amidst lamplight and shadow and a bit of magic, he can pretend. He can close his eyes and imagine that all his sins are wiped clean and all his dreams made real.

888

_Why did I join in his childish game? Why did I sit beside him as if we were old friends? I was not weak or sick or frightened. I needed no comfort._

_Yes, we helped each other on our pilgrimages. Yes, I fulfill his need for parenthood, and perhaps I possess some old protective instincts myself. But those instincts predate New Year’s Eve, before everything changed between us. Surely I owe Mandus no such protection now, less still any sort of kindness or fondness. We must work together for the success of our enterprise, that is all. We must be civil. Nothing more is necessary._

_But then, why do I find myself so comforted by his presence? Once, I would have said that it is merely because we make each other whole, but now it’s gone further, hasn’t it? I was in no distress tonight, yet I still came willingly to his side and shared in his amusement as if we are family. Am I to believe I am_ warming _to the man, now that I know he did not steal my godhood, but that I never had it at all? Surely not. The fact remains that he sabotaged my plans to save the world. That I cannot forgive. And nor must I allow him to rule me as a father rules a son._

_Well, he knows his purpose now, and I doubt I can stand in his way. He shall have his family, even if he must cobble it together from all the sweepings of the East End. I hope for all our sakes that you succeed in your endeavor, Oswald Mandus. You’ve taken the chance of salvation away from the world, but perhaps there are still some to whom you can lend your aid. May the gods speed your dream, and may it stand in the way of the future. I fear it may all prove futile, but it is the only hope I have left._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mandus's shadow puppets are based on the shadow puppet segment from the Cirque du Soleil show "Ka." You can see videos of it on YouTube, and I highly recommend you do!


	21. Doubts

20\. Doubts

Mandus does not expect the eve of reopening to be easy, and it isn’t. He’s done all he can: selected the best workers, prepared the machines, found customers to get the company started. This was the easy part. Mandus contacted the engineers who built him his abattoir machinery, and they pointed him towards potential employees and buyers. They were surprised to hear from him. They’d heard his bout of malaria had done him in.

The Engineer, too, has worked out an everyday persona. Much though he dislikes taking a human name, he recognizes the need for it. He is Oswin Mandus, Oswald Mandus’s twin brother, a black sheep who spent his youth at boarding school and his adulthood overseas, observing American manufacturing. Softened by news of Oswald’s near-fatal brush with malaria, he returned to England to become Oswald’s business partner and end their estrangement.

All they can do now is wait. That drives Mandus mad.

He feels like a trapped animal, unwilling to face the hunter’s gun but too frightened to run. It isn’t starting a new venture that bothers him, but rather the prospect of human interaction. How long can he keep up the façade he put on in the interviews? The ease, the graciousness, the assumption that he is an ordinary human being… Won’t that wear him down? Even that night with the shadow puppets, when he felt nearly normal and could imagine having a family again, the truth crept back in. One of these times, someone will see the sorrow in his face and know something is wrong.

Added to all this, he has serious doubts about the choices he has made. On the night before work begins, the Engineer hears all of them in a rush.

The Engineer feels the twisting knots of Mandus’s distress in his own stomach. Sighing and rolling his eyes all the while – it’s an ungodly hour – he goes to Mandus’s room. Mandus, who is already sitting bolt upright when the Engineer comes in, hardly waits a moment before pouring forth a torrent of harsh whispers.

“This is all wrong!” he begins, grasping for the Engineer’s hands in the dark (the Engineer pulls away). “I want to give them work that won’t grind them down! I’ll grant that machining isn’t as dull as most factory work, but it can still be repetitive, even dangerous. Automatic lathes are man-eaters! And really, who am I to think they might come to know me and trust me, when my life has been so different from theirs? I grew up in this house, a house that would seem a palace to them. I’ve never known hunger or cold or filth –”

“Mandus…”

“–and that isn’t even to mention everything that happened last year! I’ve never confessed any of it! Can I truly do good works if they’re founded on secrets and lies?”

“Mandus, listen to –”

“I’m going to hell, aren’t I? I’ve ruined everything. I’ve been given a miraculous second chance and I’ve spoiled it and I’m so afraid of going to hell –”

“Mandus, really!” The Engineer speaks in the equivalent of a good hard shake. “Do you want my answer, or would you rather wallow in self-pity? I thought better of you!”

“I don’t think I can bear it!” Mandus protests. “It’s only been a few months since New Year, and already I’m so worn down by the knowledge of –”

"You don’t seem worn down when you’re with Teague and Ross.” This is the Engineer’s way: he finds it most efficient to call all his workers by their surnames. “In fact, it’s been ages since I saw you so alive as when you made shadow puppets for them. Or when you interviewed the operatives, for that matter.”

Mandus shakes his head. “Then I should be flattered, even proud,” he says, voice low and fraying. “I’ve fooled even you. I know what will happen if I let myself befriend them! Every time I smile at them, every time I share a moment of genuine good humor, I’ll remember what I am and what can never be. The thought hurts me so, I find I can’t breathe.”

He sounds like it, too, his breath coming shallow and quick.

"Mandus…” The Engineer cannot say, does not try to say, what compels him to reach out and lay his fingers on Mandus’s wrist. The familiar disgust and fear of contamination ripples through him, but he ignores it. He feels the pulse fluttering frantically beneath Mandus’s skin.

“What are you doing?” Mandus says helplessly. “Do you mean to open my veins and give my blood to your gods?”

“No, don’t be silly. I’m…” The Engineer does not precisely know. He feels himself reaching for that cold, hard core of ruthlessness inside him and pushing it out through his fingers. “…I’m experimenting.”

“Well, kindly don’t… Wait. How are you doing this?”

The Engineer can feel Mandus’s pulse slowing and steadying. “I hardly know myself,” he mutters, half in awe, half in self-assured triumph. “Why? Do you feel better?”

“Yes,” Mandus whispers wonderingly. “Yes, I do.”

In that moment, clarity returns, and the Engineer realizes that he is comforting his former enemy. He withdraws his fingers smartly. “Good. So, will you hear my answers now?”

“Why did you –”

“Never mind.” The Engineer has no fresh excuses, so he simply refuses to explain (which may signal his uncertain feelings more clearly than any words). “As to your first point, you said yourself that machining requires skill. It’s satisfying, not like tending a power loom or – forgive me – watching pigs die. Yes, any machine can be dangerous, but the people we hired understand that and will take proper care.

“What matters more than all this, Mandus, is how you treat them. I’ve seen enough to know that you genuinely do not view these people as limbs of the machines. I hesitate to agree, of course, but it may make a difference to your workers all the same.”

“But will they _let_ me make a difference? They have their opinions of our class, opinions they’ve no doubt learned through hard experience. Some of them are suspicious of us. How can I make myself heard through all of that?”

“You know the answer well enough: you must act. You’ve spoken yourself of listening to their troubles, making compromises.”

“Not so long ago, you told me to rule them with an iron hand.” 

“And to that I hold, but I won’t waste my breath trying to convince you of it.”

“I’m sure I’ll see every respectable door in London shut in my face for this.” Mandus shakes his head bitterly. “Alienate myself from my own class.”

The Engineer draws back, surprised. “Your class never mattered to you before.”

“It does now that I need their money. I’ve put so much of my own finances into this.”

“You may lose some of them, yes, but a bit of notoriety can be good for business. Some may even be attracted by your…eccentricities.” The Engineer sighs and pushes back his hair, which is slipping from its ponytail. “As to your choices. In a strictly ethical sense, no, I suppose good works cannot be founded on secrets and lies. If you wished to be wholly virtuous, you should not have concealed your crimes. That is a fact.”

Mandus inhales sharply.

“On the other hand,” the Engineer goes on, “you have rejected everything you did last year and devoted yourself to helping those you can. You could not do that from an asylum cell. That is also a fact. I’m afraid I can’t say where that leaves you.

“And lest you think you’ve not been punished, you have been and you will be again. There was New Year’s Eve to start with, and the gods know you’ve never stopped tormenting yourself since. I feel it every day. I see how you pull away from Abigail just when you begin to treat her like a daughter. The moment you find the smallest happiness, you rebuke yourself for it.”

Mandus says nothing for a long while. Though he does seem to be considering all this, the Engineer can sense how confused and unsettled he is. This conversation will not resolve the matter. Mandus will still have a long struggle ahead of him, and he is the only one who can undertake it.

The Engineer faces much the same, he realizes. Tomorrow, he must allow his operatives to run his machines (he already thinks of the new planers and lathes as his). He has allowed the veterans to train the inexperienced, but that isn’t the same. He was present for every moment, every movement; nothing happened that he did not sanction. He will not be able to maintain that standard amidst fast-paced work. Whether he likes it or not, he must trust his new hands.

He sighs. “It’s too much, isn’t it?”

In the dark, the Engineer senses rather than sees Mandus’s eyes narrow in recognition. “You used to say that to me,” Mandus murmurs, “just before you took my mind.”

“Not ‘took,’ Mandus, I never had such power over you. No, I merely dulled your senses a bit to keep you from the worst of it.”

“Can you keep me from hell, I wonder?”

“Did Amaya say you were bound for hell, if there is indeed such a thing?”

“She said it was up to me.”

The Engineer leans forward. “Then keep to your word and do no further harm. I can advise nothing more than that, I’m afraid.”

Silence. The Engineer is faintly alarmed to find that his hands are hovering above Mandus’s as if about to clasp them in solidarity.

Then Mandus gives a low chuckle. “Where did you learn to speak as you have tonight?”

The Engineer feels himself grin. “Why, from you.”

888

The next morning, Mandus presses the end of his walking stick to a pressure plate in the courtyard, and the gates of the Mandus Processing Company – now simply called Mandus, Co. – swing open for the first time in months. It is a ceremonial gesture, not to be repeated often, and yet it symbolizes so much. For the workers, it is a new start, which they hope will lead to better things than all the new starts that have come before. For the Engineer, it is the breaking of a dam he has tried desperately to maintain but knows he must release if he is to build a new life.

For Mandus, he feels – naïvely, sentimentally, but very genuinely – that he is opening his arms and heart to people he desperately wants to love.

END ARC IV _  
_

END BOOK ONE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice our protagonists using the word "operatives" to refer to their workers. That may sound like a very modern word, but it actually comes up often in nineteenth-century writings on industrialization. Both "operatives" and "hands" were terms Victorians used to describe factory workers. Both sometimes connoted the workers' position as parts or limbs of the machines they used.


	22. Opening

BOOK TWO: THE MECHANICALS

ARC V: THIS PRIESTHOOD IS MINE

Spring-Summer 1900

“ _A cleansing fire always burns, little Mandus, but it purifies and it makes anew. Did it hurt to carve out the fevered flesh? Did it hurt to cut free the gangrenous foot? Ask instead this: can we save them?_ ”

The Engineer, spring 1899

“ _I am here again, at the foot of those stairs: towards the red light of the nursery, sunset in the window like a bleeding sky, the horizon a slit throat, the seeping dark to drain the guilt from us. I am the jaguar-faced man. I am the feathered serpent. This priesthood is mine._ ”

Oswald Mandus, 31 December 1899

* * *

21\. Opening

Any business that shuts down under mysterious circumstances acquires its fair share of rumors. The former Mandus Processing Company is no different.

The new workers, with their extensive webs of communication, have heard the whispers. They have heard, for instance, that there have been disappearances in the area, though that doesn’t particularly surprise them. This is the East End, after all, and the factory isn’t far from the Whitechapel streets where Jack the Ripper once committed his murders.

Some of them have heard that if you stand near the gates, you can feel the underground machinery rumbling and pumping and ticking beneath your feet. This is true.

Some have also heard that the factory shut down because it was commandeered by a cult of madmen who worshipped pigs. This isn’t entirely false, although it proceeds not from eyewitness accounts but from the strange mix of revulsion and lurid imagination that attends scaffolds, asylums, and slaughterhouses.

A few have even heard that Oswald Mandus is dead, and that it is his ghost who walks amongst the engines and files through ledgers in the offices. In truth, it nearly was.

What the workers find for themselves is equally strange in its own way.

There are indeed subterranean machines, including more steam engines than could possibly be needed, as if the scale of this operation was once much larger than it is now. There are doors, deep down, that never open, but in the gap between door and floor a blue-green phosphorescence can often be seen. There is cleanliness. There is Mr. Oswin Mandus, chief engineer, who seems to sense every click of the machines and knows when something is broken before it breaks. And there is Mr. Oswald Mandus, strangest of all, who talks to his hands like equals and invites them into his office and sometimes lends them his aid.

Mr. Oswald Mandus knows all their names, from the machinists to the clerks and errand boys to the mechanics and boiler men. He remembers the things they tell him, even thoughtless, casual comments. He hears their troubles and suggestions, though he cannot always act on them. And if there is sometimes sorrow in his eyes when he looks at them, it is tempered by genuine goodwill.

The workers have never known anything like this. They are more than willing to overlook certain eccentricities if it means they are treated like human beings.

But of course, these relationships do not arise overnight. They grow like a blossoming plant, amidst steam and oil and dust and noise, invisible roots binding them all together. They bring their hopes and failures, strengths and vulnerabilities, and lay them at the altar of whatever deity has given them a second chance. Here, anyone can start anew. Anything can be forgiven.

As always, it all starts with the first day.

888

It’s a strange, exhausting, exciting day. Mandus attempts to show his good faith by helping his workers where he can, but unfortunately, this doesn’t go to plan. He is well-acquainted with the principles of mechanics, having designed his own meat-processing machinery, but he has never tried to make machine parts himself. Without training, he is liable to hurt himself or irreparably damage a product. The overlooker for the shop floor, a big, dark-haired engineer of about Mandus’s age named Silas Milsom, is very firm on this point.

“These things’ll eat you if you don’t know how to handle ‘em,” he says. “If you’ll take my advice, sir, just watch for now. Get yourself used to things. If you still want to lend a hand after that, we’ll see to showing you how it’s done.”

Anxiety flickers in Silas’s eyes as he says this, as if he fears there may be consequences for turning his employer away. This bothers Mandus less than the implication that he doesn’t really belong here, that this is no place for a gentleman inventor. Mandus’s role is to acquire orders and pay his workers. He burns to prove that he is capable of more than that, as he knows he is.

Still, beneath this determination is a kernel of doubt. While he was thoroughly acquainted with the meatpacking trade, he knows much less of this new business. His workers are the true specialists. It is they who wield clever devices to transform wood and metal into elegant parts. It is they who will eventually assemble these parts into textile machines to be sent up north. All Mandus can do is watch in wonder as this mysterious process unfolds. He feels terribly useless, and a bit afraid. Although this new workshop is a good use for the blood fortune he made last year, it’s still a rather daunting investment. If he can’t establish himself as a trusted name…

He tries to have faith. He is doing a good thing. He is supervising the production of useful machines, machines that make affordable garments and drive the largest industry in Britain. He is contributing to many livelihoods.

He has his doubts, but he doesn’t regret abandoning meatpacking. It’s a welcome relief to walk through the room that once housed the pigline and see wood dust and metal shavings on the floor rather than blood. He doesn’t miss the sound of animal screams, either. He would much rather hear the rattling machinery. A place of death has become a place of creation. That soothes his heart, lets him breathe a bit easier.

The former pigline – now the shop floor – is underground, like most of the factory. At first glance, it might seem a gloomy place, with its stone walls and bare wooden doors, but industry makes it bright. The line shaft overhead clicks rhythmically as it turns, transmitting the undiminished power of the steam engines to every machine in the room. As Mandus walks down the row of ingenious mechanisms, he sees clever hands on cranks and levers and wheels, hears snatches of amiable conversation. The machines aren’t so loud here that the workers can’t talk. Though they pause at times to reset their cutting tools or measure their finished products for precision, the dialogue rarely stops. This room is full of life.

Taking Silas’s advice, Mandus observes for a while. He cannot help but marvel at the ingenuity, human and mechanical, on display all around him. For now he can do little more than make encouraging comments and ask questions when it isn’t a nuisance, though he promises himself he will learn more. Most of the operatives appreciate his interest. It makes some of them nervous, however, and he resolves to leave these few alone for now. Surely they will see how he treats their compatriots and know he means them no harm.

He wants to do more, even if he cannot yet operate the machine tools himself. He wants to prove that he does not intend to be an absentee owner. His quest eventually leads him to the boiler room, where the humidity and the lurid red heat almost knock him off his feet. The stokers’ raucous conversation trails away when he takes off his coat and rolls up his shirtsleeves. They blink at him in disbelief, as if he has just grown a second head.

“Don’t stop on my account,” says Mandus. He’s already beginning to sweat, but he can’t show weakness. That will prove to these people that he is incapable of anything more strenuous than shooting game birds and drinking fine wine.

One of the stokers, a keen-eyed, wiry man named Fletcher Small, seems wary. “What brings you down here with us, sir?” he asks. Mandus hears the question beneath the question: _Are you playing at poverty? Well, I’ll thank you not to. This is no game to us._

Mandus steps back and watches Fletcher work for a moment. He’s comfortable, that’s for certain. He has an unhesitating strength, and he moves as if his coal shovel is part of his arm. His interview was one of the particularly cynical ones, and yet something shadowed in his eyes whispered to Mandus, _I need a new start, just like you._ Mandus gave him that chance.

“I promised to work beside you,” Mandus says steadily. “I can’t do it every day, of course, but I thought I would start as I mean to go on.” He has the privilege of taking this sort of work on and off like a costume, while his employees do not, but at least he can prove that it is not beneath him to work with his hands and go home smelling of sweat and soot. “I won’t slow you down, I promise you.”

“Suit yourself, sir.” Fletcher’s voice is doubtful, reluctant.

“You’ve worked on steamships until now, I believe?” Mandus goes on.

A moment’s hesitation as Fletcher throws another shovel of coal into the boiler, and then, “I did, sir.” A hint of surprise. _You will find, my good man_ , Mandus thinks, _that I have an excellent memory for the things I care about._

Mandus smiles softly. “Then I’m sure you have a keen ear. I’d wager you can judge the health of a boiler by the sound of the steam.”

Fletcher’s eyebrows lift for just a moment, and then the look is gone. “I wager I could, sir,” he says, not without pride.

“I tried to learn that skill when I worked for my father, but I never quite managed it.”

This isn’t the first time Mandus has referred to his youth in his father’s abattoir. He often spoke of it in the interviews, in the hopes of showing his workers that he understands hard labor and unpleasant conditions. Now it feels right to turn his words into actions. Enduring the heat and the physical strain will prove that this isn’t a game to him.

This alone won’t convince the stokers of Mandus’s good intentions, of course. Mandus will have to add to it every day, until Fletcher Small and his compatriots trust that their employer is not playing a cruel joke or partaking of some bizarre fad. The prospect is daunting, but Mandus quietly reminds himself that he must not give up now, when he has come so far.

“So,” he goes on, taking coal shovel in hand, “I believe you told me in your interview that you were born in Yorkshire.”

“I was, sir. Not far from Ripon.” This time Fletcher can’t hide his surprise.

“My mother lives near there, for her health,” Mandus says. “Tell us about your home, Small, and help the work go by.”

Fletcher hesitates, as if wondering if this is a good-faith request, then obliges.

Mandus hasn’t done this sort of physical labor since he worked on his father’s killing floor. The heat is dizzying, stealing his breath, and his muscles soon begin to burn in protest, but he doesn’t stop. He is more than willing to make this small sacrifice.

_Little by little: that’s how the war is won._

Meanwhile, the Engineer has his own battles. He loves the atmosphere of this new workshop, with its beautiful, clever devices that he has already taken into his heart. That isn’t the trouble. It’s been much easier for him to release the memory of the pigline than he would have thought. Nothing has gone wrong today, either. In truth, his guidance has been _too_ perfect. He’s struggling to stand back and allow his new operatives to do their work.

They are all competent and they learn quickly, even the ones who have never seen a control panel up close. The Engineer, once a houseless soul himself, can see into the souls of others, and he sought out workers who loved machinery. Man or woman, veteran or newcomer, it made no difference as long as they had mechanical intuition. Thus far, that strategy hasn’t failed him.

No, it’s his own fault. It wouldn’t be so difficult if he could confine himself to Central Operations, with its window on the shop floor and its wall-to-wall banks of steam pressure indicators and RPM gauges and voltage meters. But he can’t. He spends the day nearly running back and forth, visiting the stokers in the boiler room (he completely overlooks Mandus) and the mechanics in the engine room and then returning to the workshop to ensure no bolts have come loose and no shafts need greasing. By midday, he’s overheating and has to drink a vial of coolant to keep from wheezing for breath. It’s a horrible taste, but it works.

One of his workers, too, gives him doubts. He remembers her from her interview: a girl named Nell Glynn, sixteen years old with big brown eyes and a permanently frightened look. It’s not that she isn’t learning fast enough: she’s as bright and curious as any of her more experienced counterparts. But when she makes a mistake, or when she can’t think what to do, her eyes well up with tears so that she can’t see what she’s doing and condemns herself to more errors. She has particular trouble with the engine order telegraph.

Such a device is normally found on ships: a round, bronze-edged dial marked off with various speeds, one on the bridge and one in the engine room. When a crewman moves the handle of one dial, the handle of its counterpart moves automatically in response. This allows pilots and engineers to communicate a desired change in speed. The nautical terms painted elegantly in white on the dial don’t exactly translate to machine speed and steam pressure, but they’re clear enough for the engine room and Central Operations to correspond.

Modern boilers and steam engines are self-governing, so it’s rare that the operatives have to make anything more than slight adjustments. Even so, the Engineer wants his hands to learn to use the engine order telegraph should any of these automated systems fail.

It isn’t particularly difficult to manage – at least, it isn’t meant to be. Nevertheless, Nell Glynn, undoubtedly through nerves, keeps pushing the handle past her chosen mark. Thankfully it’s just practice at the moment, and the engine room has been told to disregard whatever they see relayed to their telegraph. Even so…

The Engineer can’t stand tears. He hardly knows how to manage his own, much less a young woman’s.

“I’m sorry, sir!” Nell wails when she catches him eyeing her imperiously. “I don’t know what’s wrong! I’m never like this, I swear it!”

“Don’t apologize. Do it right next time,” he intones (and not, he suspects, for the last time).

One of his other hands, a woman named Eliza Morton whose will seems too strong for her tiny body, comes to Nell’s aid. She glares at the Engineer with fierce red-brown eyes, utterly heedless of the fact that he holds her livelihood in hand. That was what the Engineer liked about her from the beginning, that lack of fear – that, and her quick hands. During her interview, Mandus knocked a paperweight off his desk, and Eliza caught it before anyone knew what had happened. She’s spent much of her life racing with machinery as a power-loom weaver.

Now she takes Nell aside and says firmly, but not unkindly, “You can feel it click at every mark. Keep your head and you’ll soon have it right.”

The Engineer turns away, suddenly exhausted. Gods help Nell Glynn when business picks up. Then they’ll all have to be on their toes…

888

At the end of the day, Mandus and the Engineer meet up in the washroom: a long, low room lined with stationary tubs and drains in the tiled floor. The stokers are banking the boiler, the mechanics are oiling the line shaft, and the engineers are inspecting the machinery. All this industry puts Mandus in a very good mood. It feels right for this to be an ordinary workplace again, and it pleases him to know he is doing something useful.

Despite his exhaustion, Mandus is smiling – and this only darkens the Engineer’s mood. As he scrubs machine oil from his hands and face, he finds himself hating his artificial body. The Compound X in his veins bars him from whole areas of the complex. He can’t be near the boiler or the furnaces for more than a minute before his very blood starts to break down. And then there’s the matter of his bond with the machines…

“…not sure they quite believe I’m serious, but I think we’ll do all right in the end,” Mandus is saying contentedly. He looks critically at the Engineer. “Something wrong?”

“Yes.” The Engineer twists off the water with a sharp jerk. “This body of mine is proving to be the worst inconvenience. I thought I would feel strong with the place up and running again, and I do, but…”

He does. Perhaps he should leave it at that. The new machines sing to him. The coldness and trembling are gone, there’s a wonderful thrum in his veins, and he feels he could lift the sky. Mandus need not know anything else.

But then, Mandus will find out somehow, likely as not. The Engineer would rather he not hear it from the workers.

The Engineer pauses in toweling off his hands. “This morning, when they got the pressure up and started the engines…” he goes on, resigned. “It gave me such a fit I nearly jolted myself right out of bed. And tonight, when they banked the boiler and the pressure dropped, I felt absolutely faint. I had to give my operatives an excuse, of course, but the best I could manage was that I was tired.”

He doesn’t think they believed it, either. Some of them are uneducated, but none are stupid. It was a humiliating incident. He felt dizzy, and the next thing he knew, Eliza Morton, her discontent apparently forgotten, was helping him up from the floor. His workers were more concerned than amused, but even so…

If Mandus himself is entertained by this anecdote, he hides it well. “Did it hurt?” he asks instead. “When the pressure changed, I mean.”

The Engineer sighs, turning to walk back to the house. “No, but I shall have to be aware of it in future. I can’t be fainting on the control room floor every night.” Then, resentfully: “ _You_ seem to have done well. You’re mad to work in the boiler room.”

“Don’t be jealous. I wasn’t perfect today. I’m sure I said any number of things that only seemed to prove my ignorance. It’s not as if the workers trust me already, you know.”

“But they will. I know they will, because nothing stops you once you’ve put your mind to a task. Not even a god.”

"Careful, now, don’t undo all your progress. They might like you better if you stopped leaning over their shoulders waiting for them to make mistakes. Once they’ve gotten used to their work, you’ll have to trust them to do it.”

They’ve reached the lift now. Mandus pulls the lever, the cage slides shut, and the Engineer sits down right on the grillwork floor. He looks up at his maker. “I don’t know that I can. This isn’t easy for me, Mandus.”

Mandus runs a hand through his tousled hair, letting several dark strands fall over his brow. It suits him somehow, softens his face. “It’s only been a day, little one. Give it a chance. Give _yourself_ a chance.”

The Engineer puts his head on his knees. _Easy for you_ , he thinks. _You may demur, you may despair to work with people who think you good and sinless. But you will always have an easier time of it than I, Mandus, because you have hope. I have only a desperate need to do_ something _in the face of the future, and that isn’t enough. How can you expect me to turn my back while human pigs paw at what was once my sacred body? How can you expect me to befriend them as if I don’t know how cruel and filthy they can be?_

He guards these thoughts from Mandus’s mind, but Mandus senses their mood. “You’re afraid this will make you human,” he says softly, “or at least reveal the humanity you’ve had all along. You’ve accepted that you aren’t a god, but you haven’t made peace with mortality. That’s why you’re so upset.”

“And you’re afraid to be without a family,” the Engineer retorts, “but they _aren’t_ your family, Mandus, and neither am I. Perhaps I was once, but you turned your back on me when I needed you most.”

The lift stops with a ding that seems almost mocking, and the cage slides open. Mandus stands still, chest rising and falling rapidly. This is a sore spot for them both. The Engineer knows he is being unfair – yes, Mandus betrayed him on New Year’s Eve, but he was there during the Engineer’s illness, and every day since. Still, he can’t bring himself to apologize.

“I know,” Mandus says in a low voice, “but at least I can admit to what I fear. And I can care for my workers, family or not.”

But just as the Engineer is discontented with anything less than godhood, Mandus is only complete in fatherhood. They both want desperately to reclaim what they have lost. Knowing they can never do so does not stop them.

888

Grace nearly has dinner ready by the time they reach the house, and there is just enough time for baths (which they sorely need). When they emerge, they find sets of fresh clothes neatly laid out on their beds. Grace is already back in the kitchen.

"Thank you, Grace,” Mandus says as he sits down at the table. “You do make things ever so much easier.”

As always, Grace dips her head modestly. “I’m only doing what’s proper, sir.”

Later, Mandus and the Engineer find themselves in the parlor once more – the site of all their most important conflicts and conciliations – side by side on the sofa. They’re just sitting, nothing more: not reading, writing, smoking, or drinking. It’s strange, but Mandus has felt no need for the latter two since before New Year’s Eve. It’s as though he has been purified by tragedy, his vices burned away so he might devote himself fully to the task of healing.

The silence stretches on, broken only by the ticking of the mantel clock. The Engineer picks uneasily at a loose thread in the cushion. Then finally, Mandus speaks:

“I shouldn’t have needled you earlier. You were tired, and so was I.”

The Engineer sighs. “Yes, you should have, Mandus. Don’t apologize for your anger. I would far rather you fight me than shrink from me; I have no patience for timidity. You know, you always apologize for the things that don’t matter, never the things that do.”

"If you’re asking me to tell you I regret what I did on New Year’s Eve, I don’t. I don’t regret stopping you from committing a terrible act.”

“You may yet.” The Engineer’s stomach turns uneasily at the thought of what he’s seen. 

Mandus holds his gaze. “We shall meet it when it comes, then.” He reaches out for the Engineer’s hand, draws back. “Did you…did you mean it when you said you were once my family? I’ve thought it many times, but you’ve never said it before.”

The Engineer knew he would have to reckon with those words, but he hadn’t thought it would be so soon. Bizarrely, he feels his breath rise unbidden through his throat and his lips shape an inexplicable whispered “Yes.”

“You did mean it?”

“Yes, I…” he hears himself say, with an odd catch in his voice as if he might be close to tears, “…I did. I’ve called you father.”

Mandus seems to sense his counterpart’s strange rush of emotion. “You have,” he says softly, “but only at the very end, when I held your life in my hand. I thought you might have said it to play on my weakness, dare me to kill my last child.”

Mandus is offering a way out, the Engineer realizes, and he takes it gladly. He stands and walks around the back of the sofa.

“Yes,” he murmurs. His voice is steady now, but his heart is not. “That’s all it was.” A pause, and then, desperate for another subject, “You smell like soot.”

Mandus twists around to look at him. “Do I still? I’ve had a bath!”

"Well, have another. You need it.”

“I can’t smell anything at all! If I offend your ridiculously sensitive nose, you shall simply have to manage.”

There is a moment of silence in which they stare at each other defiantly. Then they begin to smile, and then to laugh softly. Equilibrium is restored, though it is unlike any equilibrium they have yet known. This is warm, contented, almost companionable.

Mandus stretches painfully, laughter fading to a wince. “My shoulders ache,” he groans. “I’ll be paying for today’s work for the rest of the week.” 

“It serves you right.” The Engineer moves behind Mandus and, before he can think about it, he rests his fingertips on Mandus’s shoulder. He swallows his instinctive hatred of touch and recalls last night, when he slowed Mandus’s frantic pulse by sheer force of will. The strange surge of emotion he felt a moment ago returns now, confused gentleness. He closes his eyes and wills power into Mandus.

Mandus stirs a little. “You’re doing it again – what you did last night.” He flexes his shoulders and finds the pain much diminished. “Can that compound of yours confer energy without being injected or swallowed?”

“Perhaps.”

A lie. It isn’t the compound at all, but a moment of communion, two souls slotting into place like perfectly made gears. The Engineer doesn’t want it…but he does, he does, to lose his maker would be unforgivable –

"Don’t expect it to last,” he says flatly. “I’m sure you’ll hurt like mad in the morning.”

Then he turns on his heel and leaves the room before he can think or do any more nonsensical things… Or no, they make _too much_ sense, and he doesn’t like the sense they make.

_Why?_ he queries himself as he walks blindly to his bedroom. _Why did I ease his pain?_

_You know the answer_ , his own voice returns. _He is your father. He is part of you. You forgot it for a while in your anger and your hurt, but it’s always been the answer. It’s been the same answer since the beginning._

_It has not!_ he tells himself, and slams the door for punctuation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this second book, "Mechanicals," is a Shakespearean word for laborers, usually manual laborers. In this story's context, it also refers to how nineteenth-century factory workers were often seen as part of the machines (and Mandus's conscious rejection of that norm).


	23. Fatherhood

22\. Fatherhood

The first day of work is so exhausting that they both forget about Abbie until breakfast early the next morning. She’s sitting at the table with them (it’s not strictly proper, but Mandus doesn’t care), nibbling on a bit of toast, when she cocks her head and listens.

“They started the machines,” she says. “I feel it.”

There _is_ a rumble beneath the flagstones, but it’s so slight that even the Engineer would strain to detect it were he not so attuned to his machinery. Surprised, he swallows his tea and says, “Yes, they’ve started up the engines. It takes time to reach full speed.”

Abbie looks down at her plate, hesitant. “May I…may I see them?”

The Engineer glances instinctively at Mandus, but he finds no help there. Mandus is still sore from yesterday and unused to being up so early. His head is on his arms, and he seems oblivious to the fact that the sugar he is stirring into his tea has long since dissolved. The Engineer must deal with Abbie on his own.

His first instinct is not to bother. Why should he, after all, indulge the whims of an orphan girl who is little more than a servant? A refusal is nearly on his lips when he remembers how curious Abbie has been about all the manor’s mechanical contrivances since she arrived. And just now, when she sensed the faint pulse of the awakening engines…

He can’t deny himself the chance to show off his machines.

“I will show you the steam engines,” he says, “nothing else. And you’ll have to hold my hand so you don’t wander into anything dangerous.”

“I’m not a child!” Abbie insists, looking indignant and folding her arms.

“Of course you are. Come along, I haven’t got all day.”

The engine room is still quiet by the time they reach it. The steam pressure is rising, but the great engines have yet to reach their usual state of rumbling, roaring, exhaustless industry. There are four, though only two are needed now that the Engineer is no longer collecting blood to end the world. They are dark, elegant titans, metal gleaming, flywheels muttering creakily as they gain momentum. Their human attendants are diminutive beside them.

The Engineer looks down at his small charge. He expects to see fear, intimidation at least, but there’s nothing of the sort. On the contrary, Abbie’s lips are parted in an expression of awe. She seems to have forgotten her irritation at having to hold his hand.

“What makes them move?” she asks. Her head is tilted back, straining to see the top of the nearest engine behind its protective fencing.

The Engineer does not answer at first. The child is bright, but how can she possibly understand condensers and vacuum cylinders and atmospheric pressure and rotative force?

“Well…” he begins hesitantly, “you know that steam is water that’s been heated until it turns to vapor, yes? When steam is confined to a small space – put under pressure – it acquires a great deal of power. There is more to it, of course, but that is essentially what the engines do. They use the pressurized steam we make in the boiler to turn a shaft – a metal rod that runs all across the workshop. All the machines are connected to the shaft by belts and wheels. When the shaft turns, the belts move, and so do the machines.”

“And they never get tired,” Abbie says: a statement, not a question. The Engineer wonders if she has firsthand experience competing with the power of steam, though by law she is too young.

“No,” he says with some satisfaction, “but they can speed up, so they need to be controlled.”

He points to a metal device attached near the closest engine’s flywheel. It is shaped like two legs of a triangle with a heavy ball at the end of each leg.

“Can you see that? It’s called the governor. If the engine ever starts to run too fast, those two arms lift up and open a valve to let off some steam. When the pressure returns to normal, the arms drop and the valve closes. That way, the governor ensures that the engine and all the machines that use its power always run at the same speed. It works all on its own as well. No one needs to mind it.”

Abbie nods, though the Engineer doesn’t know how much of this she understands. He thinks the governor is the cleverest of all inventions, and he’s almost jealous of the long-dead James Watt for thinking of it first. It brings him an odd, bubbling delight to explain it to a curious young soul. He feels half a child himself.

A burgeoning hiss is filling the air now as the pressure rises and the flywheels gather speed. Abbie asks quite earnestly, “Is it a dragon?”

He thinks about this. “I suppose it is. It has fire in the belly and steam in the nostrils.”

“Do you fight the dragon?”

“No, I would say that we _tame_ the dragon. We use its power to do work we could never dream of.”

Abbie looks up at him with an extraordinary light in her face, and he suspects in that moment that he may have a future engineer on his hands. “Could I tame the dragon?”

“When you’re a bit bigger. Come now, we’ll soon be underfoot.”

Abbie takes up his hand again, and the Engineer finds that there is no flare of disgust at the touch of her small, rough fingers. Perhaps Mandus was right to ask, long ago, how they might save the good and the worthy, and perhaps Abbie is the answer. _Show me these worthy, Mandus_ , the Engineer snarled then. _Show me these good. I do not see them!_

Does he still believe that? Might there be a few exceptions?

888

That evening after work, Abbie falls asleep on the rug in the parlor. One moment she’s propped on her elbows, watching the phonograph cylinder on the end table turn round and round, and the next she’s curled up like a babe. It’s the most vulnerable she has ever been in the Engineer’s presence. He knows she is frightened of him, of his coldness and his antipathy, yet today, amongst the awakening engines, they stood united by their love of machinery.

Mandus is unaware of this change. As he carries the girl up to bed, he knows only that he is trembling and his throat is tight with a mixture of loss and denial and fierce, sharp joy. He cannot let her go, he knows, and never could. Even so, he restrains himself from kissing her brow.

Back in the parlor, he sits down opposite the Engineer, who is stretched out on a sofa. “Do you still mean to send her away?” Mandus asks openly. Because if you do, you’d best do it soon. I cannot help wanting to be her father.”

The Engineer stares into the hearth. He doesn’t know, really. He still isn’t sure he wants a troublesome child around the house, and yet there was that moment today, when Abbie asked about the dragon… That wasn’t just a child’s imagination; it was a real recognition of the almost supernatural power arrayed before her.

“Do you love her?” the Engineer asks at last. “Or do you love the idea of her?”

Mandus lets out a long breath, steadying himself. “You’ve asked me that before, and I don’t have an answer. I only know I… I want to do for her what I failed to do for my sons.”

“But is it really for her, or is it for you? Or for your boys?”

“Can it not be all three?” Mandus stands up, suddenly angry and confused and helpless. “What does it matter, really? I can give her a home and keep her safe and treat her kindly, and why shouldn’t I?”

“Because, as I told you, it will torment you to feel that you’ve replaced your sons. And you _will_ feel that, Mandus, and I’ll be the first to hear it when you do.”

“Oh, what would _you_ know about it?” Mandus’s voice has scarcely risen, but his eyes are blazing. He hates the Engineer’s cool, calm voice, trying to take him apart as if he were a faulty machine. “You’ve never cared for anyone but yourself!”

 _That isn’t true_ , the Engineer wants to say, but of course it is. He holds his other’s gaze. “I did not intend to argue with you,” he says quietly. “I only want you to be sure –”

“But don’t you see? I’m _not_ sure! I’m not sure of anything at all!”

They stare at each other for a moment, each breathing rather hard.

The Engineer blinks several times. He almost can’t believe what he has just heard. “You always speak with such certainty,” he says in a muted voice quite unlike his own.

“Then I fooled you,” says Mandus bitterly. He told himself when he began his new life that he was done playing games, and yet that’s all he’s done ever since.

“You might have told me that,” the Engineer scoffs. “I’ve thought it, of course – that your confidence might be a mask, just like my godhood – but you’ve never said so until now.”

Mandus folds his arms. “Would it have made a difference?”

“Yes, a great deal of difference! I would have known for certain that you were not my superior, that you were just as broken as I was.”

“Then hear me now. I never meant to live beyond New Year’s Eve. When I survived, my only choice was to follow my instincts. I don’t know that I can truly help my workers, but it’s within my power to offer employment and fair treatment, so I must try. Abigail is no different. I don’t know if I’m prepared to have another child, but I do know I can offer her a home where she will never be hungry or alone or afraid.”

All of this has been quite a revelation to the Engineer, and it certainly puts the two of them on a more even playing field. Even so, he can’t quite let go now that he’s bitten down. “But you hardly know her, Mandus.”

“I know enough.” Mandus can’t let go, either. He can feel himself approaching a precipice of sorts, but he doesn’t think he can stop. “I know she is a child who –”

“Yes, she is a child, and that’s all that matters to you.”

“Fine, then!” Mandus throws up his hands. His patience with the Engineer, reclining on the sofa and playing judge and jury, has run out. “Yes, I need a child. I don’t know that I _deserve_ a child, but I need a child. There’s an empty place in me otherwise, and I can’t stand it anymore. Perhaps I _am_ being selfish, and perhaps one day I _will_ feel that I’ve betrayed my sons; I don’t know. But I do know that it felt _right_ to put on shadow puppets for Abigail. It felt _right_ to carry her upstairs and tuck her in. It felt right to be her father. I’m stumbling in the dark – I can only do what feels right.”

All of this comes in a rush, and it leaves Mandus quite exhausted. He drops into an armchair, suddenly aware of the dull ache in his muscles again.

“That’s the only answer I can give you,” he says wearily. “Don’t you dare judge me. You have no right.”

The Engineer looks away. This is true, he knows. Abigail and the workers, Mandus’s new “family” – that is plainly a naïve delusion, but the Engineer has had delusions of his own. It’s taken him so long to see his godhood for what it was, and he still hasn’t quite let it go. Mandus is no different. He may indeed come to love Abigail as a daughter, but for now she is merely someone to fill the void Edwin and Enoch left behind. Perhaps that’s to be expected. They both knew, after all, that Mandus’s most recent trip to Mexico was only a starting point. That journey was for survival’s sake, and nothing more.

With this in mind, the Engineer’s quills fall back into quiescence. Mandus is not, it seems, a god. The man who has given him so many lectures, the man who just yesterday delineated the Engineer’s deepest fears in that infuriatingly patient tone, is naught but a persona. The Engineer’s mask is a god; Mandus’s is a father.

The Engineer sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the sofa. “Well, at least you know where you stand. Keep the girl if you will; I won’t deny I see promise in her. I only hope you can manage the consequences.”

Mandus’s face is in his hands, his voice muffled. “I don’t know that I can. I won’t know unless I try.”

888

The next morning, Mandus wakes Abbie with a gentle hand on her red-brown curls. The girl sleeps lightly, and it isn’t long before she opens her eyes and blinks hazily up at him. Mandus holds his silence for a little while, allowing her to wake up naturally. Then, when she is alert enough to listen, he swallows all the doubts clawing their way up his throat and says, “You know you’ve been here for a sort of trial period thus far, yes?”

Abbie nods solemnly. There is caution in her eyes now.

“Well, I’ve discussed it with my brother” (how strange that word still feels), “and we’ve decided that if you wish to make this your home, you may stay as long as you like.”

Abbie lets out a soft gasp. She doesn’t move at first, but her eyes light up with a hope so unadulterated that it hurts to see it. Mandus has seen that look before, that trust. Then she reaches out and wraps her small arms around his waist.

Her little head comes to rest against his chest, and he feels his breath catch. His soul floods with a burst of mingled joy and sorrow, distilled to an exquisitely sharp point. He has forgotten what it feels like to have a small, fragile human being in his arms, so vulnerable and yet so trusting. It’s every bit as fulfilling as the first time he held the Engineer, and yet more so. While the Engineer is child _like_ , Abbie truly is a child, in all her innocence and candor and unveiled perception. As Mandus embraces her, one hand on her head and one on her back, he can almost imagine she is Edwin or Enoch come back to him.

Then he remembers: Edwin and Enoch.

He releases Abbie, clears his throat. “Of course, Grace would still appreciate your help with the chores, but you’ll be a proper part of the household now.”

Abbie straightens up, blankets dropping from her shoulders, and kisses Mandus’s cheek. “You mean it, sir?”

“I mean it,” he confirms, and Abbie wipes happy tears from her cheeks. It’s an oddly mature gesture for one so small, and Mandus wonders again what taught her to exercise such restraint. Survival, most likely. Hardship. Necessity.

 _Well, no more_ , he tells himself. _I may not deserve another child, but this one came to me, and I will protect her. She will be young again, and she will want for nothing._

“I’ll see you after work, small one,” he promises. He holds the girl close a moment longer until he starts to think about the past and has to leave, lest Abbie see the sorrow in his face.


	24. Lamb and Lion

23\. Lamb and Lion

All too soon, it’s nearly Easter, and business is rapidly picking up. Mandus’s contacts do their work a bit too well, and suddenly he finds himself with more orders than he knows how to manage. Some of the buyers are established textile mills, but a number of them are just starting out, much as Mandus is. He can let none of them down. If he makes a good impression, he will also make long-term partnerships. This is his first real test. He must trust his workers to meet it.

Still, he remains committed to fair treatment despite the increased load. He summons his head overlooker to his office – an astonishingly strong, gentle giant of a man named Samuel Baird – and warns him not to let standards slip.

“If you see anyone – and I don’t think you will – cutting corners or acting recklessly to save a bit of time, you may reprimand them as you see fit,” Mandus tells him. “I don’t hold with that sort of thing. We must maintain both quality and safety.”

“Right, sir.” Samuel, whom his colleagues have nicknamed “Big Sam,” has already acquired a reputation for honor. Mandus finds it very easy to trust him, with his rough, earnest face and dark eyes sparkling beneath bushy eyebrows. Samuel has never been a foreman before, but he’s a veteran machinist who spent his childhood in factories of all sorts, and he knows laborers better than most.

"We cannot lose our heads and hearts,” Mandus goes on, “simply because we’re speeding up. I won’t have anyone arguing over equipment or endangering themselves or others.”

Samuel shifts his massive frame a little, the chair creaking beneath him. “Then…we _are_ speeding up, sir?”

Mandus grimaces. Speeding up is usually an insidious process, accomplished by slowly increasing the speed of the machines so that the operatives don’t notice until it’s too late to complain. No doubt Samuel has been on the receiving end of it more than once. Mandus has never liked the idea. In a shop like this where the operatives work so closely with the machinery, it could well be dangerous to speed up without warning.

"Yes, I think we may have to,” he says grimly. “Unless you believe the workers would rather extend their hours than push harder during the usual day.”

“I doubt that, sir, but I’ll find out for sure if you like.”

“If you would, Baird, yes.”

“Most masters don’t give warning, sir. They never did when I was a lad, and I’m lucky I never lost no fingers. You’re good to let ‘em know.”

Mandus feels his heart clench, and he knows it must show in his face. _No, I’m not good. I’m not good at all._

He smiles faintly. “Do unto others, Baird.”

“That’s as I try to live, sir. If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, you should rest. You’re still hurting.”

_Is that what you see in my face? The pain of my strained muscles? That’s just as well, I suppose, but it isn’t that. I need to throw myself into my work now more than ever. I can’t bear to think._

“I promised to lend my aid in times of trial, and so I shall,” Mandus tells him instead. “I only hope it raises morale and shows the workers I understand what I’m asking of them.”

“I would think so, sir. There’s no other master in London as’d do what you do.”

 _No, I don’t expect there is_ , Mandus thinks. _That’s because no other master in London has done what I’ve done._

He dismisses Samuel cheerfully enough, but he doesn’t feel it. He has good days and bad days, days when he feels almost normal and days when everything hurts. This is not one of the better days. Today, it isn’t easy to be alive.

888

Samuel’s kind words haunt Mandus for the rest of that day. His mind wars with itself, running in circles, trying to reconcile two opposing experiences. How is it that he can be so considerate of his workers now, and so gentle to Grace and Abbie, when just months ago he was willing to commit indiscriminate slaughter in the name of the apocalypse? How can the same man live both those lives? Is he good or is he evil, or – and he fears this possibility most of all – is he some distressing amalgam of both?

Is everyone?

Eventually, he works himself into such a knot that he begins to tremble. He ducks into a storage room when no one is looking and sinks to the floor between the shelves, arms around his knees, rocking himself. He desperately wants someone to come and put a hand on his shoulder and tell him what to think before he splits apart.

It is the Engineer who finds Mandus in the end. His purposeful footfalls falter and then stop in the doorway to the storage room; then he begins to make slow his way to Mandus’s hiding place. Mandus doesn’t look up, but he senses the Engineer’s hesitation.

The cautious footsteps stop beside him. A pause, then: “Your absence has been noted.”

Mandus does lift his head now, forced to regain a bit of practicality. “Am I needed? Is something wrong?” His voice is rather hoarse but otherwise steady.

“No, but the operatives are wondering if you’ve been taken ill.”

 _How I wish it were that simple!_ “Samuel Baird called me good,” he rasps, sounding lost.

The Engineer blinks, concealing a flicker of discomfort. He has never known how to manage delicate situations like this one. “To him and to the rest of the hands, you _are_ good.”

“But I wasn’t always!”

“You turned your back on all that. Nearly killed me for it, lest you forget.”

“It still happened! This isn’t so black and white, though I wish to God it were!”

Now, to Mandus’s surprise, the Engineer sits down beside him, his face full of pity and hard-edged anger. “You realize too late,” he murmurs. “I could have given you black and white, you poor fool.”

Mandus shakes his head. “But black and white isn’t the answer. However desirable it may be, it isn’t real. This world is gray.”

“ _My_ world would not have been gray. Had you stayed at my side, you would not be suffering as you are now.”

“Gods and pigs and nothing in between.”

“Precisely.”

This is a child’s simplistic view of life, and Mandus knows it, but he does not feel prepared to face the messier reality. His hands are still shaking, and an unappeasable force is threatening to tear him apart from within. He isn’t at all certain that he can sustain this new life of his, with the duality of his past and present pulling at him from opposite directions.

But he must try. Although he does not know if he _is_ good, he _wants_ to be good.

“You’ve done well until now,” the Engineer observes presently. “Have you lost your momentum?”

Mandus nods. “The opening was such an ordeal that I scarcely had a chance to think about what I was doing, but now that we’ve found our stride, I’ve begun to wonder if I…” He takes a breath, straightens up. This won’t do. There is no turning back now. “Well, I’ll be all right again. Just not this moment.”

For once, the Engineer seems to understand. He tucks up his legs and folds his arms across them, saying nothing to Mandus but not ignoring him either. His company does not offer the gentle embrace or the definitive answer Mandus needs, but it is enough. The Engineer, like Mandus, is marked by New Year’s Eve and all that came before. He knows what that means.

888

Easter does not go unmarked amidst all the bustle. For one thing, Mandus attends church for the first time since Lily’s death: a little stone church he’s never visited before, where no one knows him. When he tries to walk through the doors, it’s like trying to climb the temple all over again. His own guilt becomes a physical force until he can’t breathe, but he manages it in the end. If there were no sinners, there would be no churches, he tells himself. Churches are for the broken.

Mandus isn’t sure what he thinks of God anymore. He’s seen too much to settle on one interpretation as the absolute truth. Still, as he listens to the hymns, the organ thrumming through his body and the tang of incense filling the air, he can feel the same reassuring weight he felt at the temple. There is a presence here, unimaginably vast yet indescribably gentle. It reaches into his heart and soothes away the hurt as a father kisses a scraped knee.

“ _Made like him, like him we rise_ ,” the choir sings exultantly to close the final hymn. “ _Ours the cross, the grave, the skies!_ ”

 _Redemptor Mundi_ , Redeemer of the World – isn’t that one of Christ’s titles? Mandus has no hope of being a redeemer like that. He cannot offer the keys to paradise, but he can offer fairness and human kindness.

 _Theirs the wheels, the steam, the fires_ , he thinks. He looks up at the morning light filtering through the stained-glass windows above the altar.

_If I have ever done a single good thing in this world, I beg you, give me strength to look after them._

888

When he returns home, he is determined to be cheerful. He has help.

Grace has been busy in his absence. She’s made up a centerpiece for the table in the dining room: a mirror laid flat and surrounded by greens, some standing upright, to give the illusion of a pond ringed by trees and shrubbery. She’s woven a little boat out of twigs and manned it with tiny figurines of chicks.

Mandus is still struggling with a sudden rush of gratitude when Grace finds him. She must have mistaken this for something more negative, for her face falls. “I should have told you I meant to do this, but the little chicks weren’t very dear…”

So she spent a few pence of the household budget in the name of kindness, and she thinks Mandus disapproves? He swallows hard and holds up his hand. “You’ve done beautifully,” he manages to say, “and I thank you.”

Grace dips her head. “I’m only doing what’s proper.”

“No, you’ve done more than that.” He takes her hand for just a moment, just long enough to convey the feelings he cannot express in words.

At last, Grace smiles: a genuine smile this time, not merely a polite one. “I’m so glad you like it, sir,” she says in a relieved rush of breath. “I’ve hidden a few chocolate eggs around the house for Abbie to find later, and I’ve boiled some things for dyes if that’s all right.”

Mandus shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re wonderful, Grace.”

He thinks of how strange and somber this house must seem to Grace. He is inexpressibly grateful to her for brightening things up. It means so much to know that she cares enough to bring light into his life, and Abbie’s and the Engineer’s. Can she sense the sorrow in the house? No doubt she can. It’s better than it used to be, but it still lingers like a pall at times. He blesses Grace for trying to lift it, even though she will never understand.

She isn’t finished, either. She takes Mandus down into the kitchen, where she has been industriously boiling yellow and red onions, beets, and blueberries to make yellow, green, pink, and blue dyes. Some of each dye has been poured off into glasses. Abbie is leaning over them, watching the eggs at the bottom of each glass with an eager eye. Even more surprising, the Engineer is sitting beside her with a pair of scissors and several lengths of colored ribbons.

He looks up when Mandus comes in. “What?” he says accusingly.

Mandus just shakes his head at the child and nearly-child sitting side by side. “Nothing, little one. Nothing at all.” He’s so contented he could laugh aloud.

What follows is the most enjoyable day Mandus has known in a very long time, and he treasures it all the more because he knows it won’t last. Even the Engineer’s natural antipathy seems to have dulled. Several times, he murmurs a soft “Steady, now,” and supports Abbie’s hand as she uses a spoon to lift each egg from its glass. He doesn’t flinch at the contact, nor does he roll his eyes at Abbie’s delighted smile.

Once the eggs are dry, they set about the business of decorating. It’s fiddly work, but so utterly _normal_ that Mandus can hardly believe it is real. Can this really be happening to the same man who killed his children and turned men into pigs? And the Engineer, too: can the same creature who tried to end the world really be sitting here now, docile as a lamb, etching patterns on Easter eggs with a penknife? If this is a dream, Mandus doesn’t want it to end.

“Do you know who would be good at this?” Mandus asks as he delineates curls and zigzags on the delicate shell in his hand. “Eliza Morton, the one who saved my paperweight. She has skilled hands.”

“Eliza Morton is too bold for her own good,” the Engineer mutters. He tries to focus on his work so he does not flush and give Abbie and Grace the fright of seeing him turn blue. “You know what happened, Mandus. She saw me collapse on the floor that first day, and she had the nerve to help me up as if I were an invalid.”

Abbie looks up from the bow she’s tying around her egg. “Were you cold, sir?” She sounds genuinely concerned.

The Engineer grimaces. Mandus expects him to snap at the girl, but he doesn’t. “No, not this time,” he sighs. “I suppose I’m not always cold, as I once told you. I simply…lost my equilibrium. Pushed myself too hard.”

“Don’t spoil the day, now,” Mandus cautions. _I thought you liked people who stand their ground._

_Stand their ground, not undermine me. Morton made me look weak._

The Engineer looks at the girl blinking anxiously up at him and finds the will to banish his irritation. “Well, my hands aren’t as petite as Morton’s,” he says lightly, “but yours are, small one. Would you finish for me?”

He hands his egg to Abbie. She takes it, delighted in his trust.

“What of that other girl you’ve been telling me about – Nell Glynn?” Mandus goes on.

“Oh, Nell Glynn.” The Engineer’s face falls again. “She frustrates me. She’s bright enough, but she’s also a nervous little thing, and she sabotages herself. If she can’t learn to keep her head, she’ll fall behind.” He glances around the table. “What do you think, Teague? You are a sensible woman.”

Grace looks up, startled. “I…I couldn’t say, sir.”

“I’ve asked you to say.”

“Well, I…I don’t know the girl well, but I would say to let her learn, sir. As long as she won’t put anyone in danger, let her make mistakes and work out the answers.”

“In other words, stand back and stop making her nervous.” The Engineer smiles grimly. That’s just what he cannot do.

“I don’t mean to presume, sir.”

“I hired you because you spoke your mind in your interview, Teague.”

Emboldened by this talk of speaking freely, Abbie puts in her two-penny worth: “You’re scary, sir.” She doesn’t sound particularly scared, however.

Mandus looks at her sharply, but the Engineer doesn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he even smiles. “Am I? Surely I don’t frighten _you_.”

Abbie giggles. “Not me! And you’re not scared of me either.”

Ordinarily, this would have been nothing but childish babble, but Abbie says it so earnestly that it demands attention. No one knows quite what to make of it. Abbie is left wondering how exactly she’s managed to silence three adults.

888

It almost seems a shame to eat the eggs. They peel and enjoy several of them over dinner, along with a ham Grace procured from the market several days ago, spiced with cinnamon and cloves. It isn’t much, but it’s enough to mark a special day. After dinner they send Abbie on her way, scampering through the house in search of her chocolate eggs.

Mandus and Grace watch affectionately from the dining room as Abbie runs into the parlor. “It’s a large house,” he says under his breath. “Can she really find all of them?”

“They’re all on the first floor,” Grace grins, “but I think she would manage even if they weren’t.”

“You would make a fine mother, Grace.”

Mandus recognizes at once that this is not entirely appropriate, but Grace takes it in stride. “I do hope so, sir. Someday.”

Abbie has never had chocolate before. She is in love from her first bite, when her eyes go wide and her face splits into a broad smile. She makes her way through several of the eggs before abruptly falling asleep in Mandus’s lap, brightly-colored wrappings scattered around her.

It’s a moment before Mandus realizes he is trembling. Today was so normal, so pleasant, but now, with a child’s fragile weight on his legs, he remembers.

The Engineer, seated across the parlor, shakes his head. “This isn’t good for you.”

“I’ll be all right,” says Mandus shakily. “I’ll be all right if I can only get used to it.”

“Well, she trusts you, Mandus. Soon you won’t be able to turn her away if you find it’s too much.”

The thought frightens Mandus, but he forces it down. “I need to be her father,” he says helplessly. “For her. For me.”

“Do it, then. Just be ready.”

"That’s just it: I may never be ready, just like you told me at the temple. But I still need to climb.”

The Engineer eyes him critically. Mandus is shaking, yes, but he hasn’t let his memories and his guilt drive him away from Abbie. Is that madness, or is it strength? Whatever it is, the Engineer feels a grudging respect sneak to the surface. If any man can claw his way back from the abyss by sheer force of will, it is Oswald Mandus.

888

The Engineer lingers in the parlor long after Mandus and Abbie have gone. Grace stays, too, doing some mending by the light of the electric lamps. She seems to sense his troubled thoughts, but she keeps her eyes on her needlework. The Engineer wishes she were not quite so well-trained to speak only when spoken to. He doesn’t know how to begin.

Finally, he can bear it no longer. He throws his hands down into his lap. “Why did I do it, Teague?”

Grace lays her work delicately aside. She knows what he means, he can guess, but she pretends polite ignorance. “Begging your pardon, sir?”

He exhales forcefully. “Today, Teague. Coloring eggs, tying ribbons, indulging the whims of a child… It isn’t like me. I am not a gentle man.”

“If it’s not too bold, sir…” She seems to be sizing him up, wondering how much she can say. “…I think you can be very gentle.”

"What makes you say that?”

“I’ve seen you with Abbie. You took her to see the steam engines the other morning even though you didn’t need to. You kept her from dropping the eggs when she took them out of the dye, and you held her hand like you were afraid she would break. It didn’t seem insincere.”

Was he sincere? Grace is right about one thing: there was something unnerving about holding Abbie’s hand. The Engineer is used to machines, infinitely more powerful than humans even in their delicate moments. They demand forcefulness, strength, surety. Fragile things – hard-boiled eggs and children’s hands – are strange to him.

He decides not to answer.

“And what did she mean when she said I’m not frightened of her? Of course I’m not. Why should I be?”

"Maybe she meant to say you fear something in yourself instead, sir.”

He almost laughs, but it’s true. Mandus, Abbie, the workers – they all reveal facets of his shifting nature that he does not want to consider. Insecurity and immaturity. Protectiveness. Warmth. Gentleness. A year ago, he would have cast off all these things except perhaps a twisted sort of guardianship. There was no place for warmth or mercy in his path to ascendance, which led through the darkest parts of human experience. Even now he sees these things as signs of weakness, particularly where Mandus is concerned. Though he is certain now that Mandus is as broken as he is, that’s no reason to be anything more than colleagues.

Unless, of course, it is. Unless they have always been broken, from the very beginning in Mexico, and they’ve held each other together since then with hate and grief and delusions of cleansing fire. Unless they have always needed each other to survive.

He lets out his breath in a rush. “You may be right, Teague,” he says a little shakily. “You know, after the first day, Mandus was hurting from his foolish work in the boiler room, and I wished I could…” No, that’s too much. He cannot admit, even to himself, that he wanted to heal Mandus. “The point is, Teague, that he and I have a history, and it should have driven us apart forever.”

If any of this makes Grace uncomfortable, she hides it well. Perhaps she is used to it. Lady’s maids must hear all manner of personal gossip from their mistresses, after all. Instead, she smiles as if she doesn’t quite see the problem and says, “But it hasn’t? That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

Is it? Can he really forgive Mandus, even care for him? The thought alone threatens to unbalance his universe, and he has to cut it at the root.

"Thank you, Teague, you’ve given me something to think about,” he says curtly, and leaves the room before he can think anything at all.


	25. With Only a Small Sacrifice

24\. With Only a Small Sacrifice

Easter is the last peaceful time. After that, all the letters Mandus sent prior to reopening begin to bear fruit. The company acquires new local buyers in addition to their contracts with the northern mills. Some of Mandus’s correspondents have plainly spoken to friends in other industries, for he begins to receive orders from factories throughout London, requesting spare screws and nuts and bolts. Soon the deliverymen are gone most of the day, the machinists are nearly overwhelmed, and the poor assemblymen find themselves wishing for more limbs. Once, Mandus catches Silas Milsom with no less than four spanners of different sizes, two in each hand.

The speed-up momentarily disrupts their operations, but they soon settle into a new rhythm. The machinists are all veterans who know how to become part of their equipment. It isn’t long before their movements become as precise and cadenced as the lathes that shape rollers and spindles. Mandus continues to learn, even convinces Silas to let him help with assembly. He may not understand the finer points, but at least he can bolt things together.

Not everyone adapts so easily. For one, the Engineer finds that the increased speed precludes him from darting about the complex making sure nothing is wrong. It forces him to confine himself to Central Operations – there are enough near-collisions in the corridors as it is. Eventually, he becomes so aggravated with all the overlapping voices and rushing about that he mandates silence. He alone will give the orders.

But Nell Glynn cannot keep silent. She has a seemingly endless series of questions for her colleagues, and her ambient whispering grates on the Engineer’s nerves like a leaky steam valve. The worst part is that she is correct about nearly everything she asks. If she would just have confidence in herself, she would spare them all the irritation.

Part of the Engineer knows he should not be so annoyed. Nell is still quite young, after all, and she is shy and sweet by nature. But he cannot stand to see her cancel out her powerful intuition with her own insecurity. Ever since that first day with the engine order telegraph, her self-assurance has been nonexistent.

“You know what to do, girl. Do it,” he tells her when she asks her hundredth question of the day.

Immediately her big brown eyes fill with tears.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, if I see you crying once more, Nell Glynn…”

As usual, Eliza Morton glares at him. She knows the Engineer reprimands everyone in the control room, but she seems to think he has a vendetta against Nell in particular.

“I’m sorry, sir, but this pressure gauge is wrong!” Nell protests. “It can’t really be so high! Something would have exploded!”

The Engineer remembers what Grace told him about letting Nell find her own answers, but he can’t help himself. He does not have Grace’s patience.

He crosses the room to the bank of dials Nell is tending and finds the offending gauge. He gives it a sharp tap. The needle judders and then settles back to a more normal position.

“The needles occasionally stick.” He directs his words to the room at large, but his gaze is for Nell. “Consider that before you lose your head.”

Nell opens her mouth to object, swallows, blinks furiously.

The Engineer returns to the back of the room, where he has placed a chair so he can watch all the control panels. He hears Eliza say softly to Nell, “He’s only doing it because he knows you can be better. Don’t let it put you off. You’re sharp and you have a good eye.”

The Engineer knows he is being unfair, but how can he help it? It’s a miracle he can work with these people at all. Not long ago, he would have been ill at the thought of human beings touching his machines. Now he has had to relinquish control to them, and in the midst of a push, no less. This isn’t just a machine he is surrendering; it is his body, a body whose every heartbeat is known to him. It is his former home. It is his identity.

And then there is Eliza Morton, the mother bear. She sees through him. And she reminds him of Mandus.

888

Mandus makes a habit of ducking into secluded corners to shake with the weight of his past – not so long that anyone notices, as they did the first time it happened, but long enough to steel himself against the next innocent, unknowing worker who calls him good.

Sometimes the Engineer sits with him.

Mandus wonders how many years this strain is taking off his life. Well, all the more reason to make the most of whatever remains. He wishes he could do more than offer work and fair treatment: restore his victims to life, or better yet, turn back time and prevent himself from touching the Orb.

Lacking that power, he can give of himself in return for all he has taken. He may not _be_ good – at least he certainly wasn’t always – but he can still _do_ good. He just needs an opportunity.

888

Despite some growing pains, the push continues successfully. As business gains steam, Mandus receives nothing but compliments from his patrons. He almost can’t believe nothing has gone wrong thus far. There have been a few arguments, a few minor injuries, and quite a few strained muscles, and sometimes Mandus has had to step away until he can smile at his workers again. Other than that, however, all is well.

And then one day, the Engineer begins to have trouble breathing.

At first, he thinks he must have inhaled something that didn’t agree with his body. There is enough dust and shaved metal on the shop floor, after all. He takes a drink of Compound X and fully expects to feel better in the morning.

He doesn’t. The next day, he is so groggy that he sleeps through the firing of the boiler, which normally sends a jolt through his body. When Mandus does shake him awake, he has to lean over the edge of the bed and cough deep and hard before he can speak.

Mandus is rather alarmed. The Engineer only leans against him for a few seconds as he sits up, but it’s a dire sign.

"Are you ill?” Mandus asks. “Have you been drinking the pig’s blood again?”

“No, it must be something in the air. This body has never been exposed to the discharges of a functioning factory. I suppose I’ll get used to it.”

Mandus does not look convinced. “Well, perhaps you should rest today.”

“And leave my control room to the pigs? Not a chance. I’ll die first.”

He pushes through that day, but the next day he is almost too hoarse to speak, and by the next he can scarcely say a word without panting. He is forced to allow his most competent operatives to give the orders. Humiliating as this is, Eliza Morton does not gloat. She can tell something is seriously wrong with her employer.

“It’s the steam pipes,” the Engineer rasps to Mandus that night. He is propped up in bed, and for once he does not mind Mandus sitting beside him. “I can feel it. Gods know when the Man-pigs last cleaned them. We never saw to it in our repairs either. All the drifting filth from last year’s slaughter has been congealing for months, and now, with the push…”

He starts to wheeze for breath, and Mandus stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “It’s reached a tipping point, and that’s made you ill.”

The Engineer nods wearily. He looks so fragile, pale and shadow-eyed.

“This illness,” Mandus goes on, “is it in your body, or are you only feeling what the machine is feeling, so to speak?”

The Engineer shakes his head. “I’m not sure, but…”

“But you cannot take the gamble. How long, do you think, until you can’t breathe?”

“This has happened so fast…”

“Right.” Mandus lets out a long, heavy breath. He knows what must be done now, and it isn’t a prospect he relishes. “They’ll have to be cleaned, I suppose. We might be able to scour them with enough pressurized steam, but with business being what it is, we can’t spare the coal.”

He doesn’t want to think about this. He knows he sent children into those pipes in the throes of his madness. He knows some of them died.

“I can send someone into the larger pipes tomorrow night, once they’ve cooled and everything is shut down,” Mandus says. He is staring at the floor, hating every word. “Will that keep you in good health until the push is over?”

The Engineer touches Mandus’s hand very lightly, very briefly. _Thank you_ , he sends through his thought.

It might be the first time he’s said that to his creator.

The next day, Mandus addresses the Engineer’s mechanics in person. He does not tell them, of course, that the Engineer’s health has been damaged by the state of the pipes - they don't need to know about his strange bond with the machines. He does indicate that the situation has been neglected for too long and will inevitably impede their work if it is not rectified (which is true).

Eliza seems to see through this. “Is the other Mr. Mandus ill, sir?”

“He may be. His health has always been rather…delicate, and what with the recent upswing…”

"Would he rest easy if we saw to the pipes, sir?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

Eliza squares her shoulders. “Then I’ll go. I’m small, I’m fast, and I don’t mind tight places.”

Her dark eyes are afire with something Mandus knows very well. The way her gaze encompasses the room says, _I’ll do it for your Engineer, but it’s for these people more than anything. For everyone in this company. I’ll do it so they don’t have to._ Mandus understands that protective instinct all too well.

The next moment, he shakes himself furiously. Can he really put Eliza’s safety at risk when he has promised never to harm another human being? Can he do to her what he did to those poor children last year?

His gentlemanly upbringing rears its head. “I cannot countenance sending a woman into the pipes,” he tells her softly, though this is only part of the truth.

Eliza folds her arms. “With all due respect, sir, I’m grown. I can look after myself. If you don’t send me, you’ll be sending a child, and none of us want that.”

She is right, of course. And she has made her choice.

“You don’t know the way,” Mandus protests weakly. Nell’s face is twisting in such fear that Mandus has to try once more.

“I’ll learn the way. I’ve a good memory.”

Eliza isn’t afraid, he realizes. The emotion in her voice is reserved for her fellow workers, not for herself. For Eliza as for many of her colleagues, death is never very far away, and she has accepted it as a companion. That makes a grim sort of sense, but that protectiveness… Why is Eliza so willing to safeguard people she’s known for less than two months?

Mandus doesn’t know the specifics, but he understands he is looking in a mirror. And he cannot resist.

He sighs. “Very well, then. You’d best come look at a schematic.”

It strikes him that this is just the sort of opportunity he wished for when he slipped away to shiver with guilt the other day, an opportunity to do real good. If he cannot quite turn back time, he can at least endure the same ordeal he demanded of those poor child laborers last year. Suddenly he wants to, _needs_ to. It will hardly pay his debts, but it will be a start. Perhaps his workers’ kind words will feel less jarring once he has done something to earn them.

He shows Eliza the diagrams as promised, but his mind is made up: Eliza Morton will never see the inside of those pipes.

Back in the manor, the Engineer is aware of none of this. He’s spent the day drifting in and out of sleep. Occasionally Grace visits and offers him drinks of tea. He breathes the steam until the tea cools enough for him to swallow, which seems to ease his lungs. Despite Grace’s company, he feels very young and vulnerable. Mandus has not spoken to him all day.

That night, he starts to feel a bit better, his breathing deepening and easing. He calls Grace in and asks after Mandus.

“I haven’t seen him since the midday break, sir,” Grace tells him. “He said he meant to send Eliza Morton to clean the pipes.”

Morton? That doesn’t seem right. She and the Engineer have been butting heads since the beginning; why would she volunteer to save him? Unless it isn’t for him, of course, but for her fellows.

Then quite suddenly, the tightness in his chest lifts almost entirely, and the rush of unimpeded air makes him cough. He casts out with his mind, seeking Mandus, but he runs up against the mental equivalent of a featureless stone wall. Dread settles in his stomach. If Mandus is shutting him out, something must be wrong.

He swings his legs out from under the blankets and smooths his wrinkled shirt. “I need to find him,” he mutters distractedly, looking about for his shoes. “I should have realized this doesn’t make sense. The day Oswald Mandus sends anyone into the pipes is the day the world ends.”

Grace tries to coax him back to bed, but he will have none of it. When he reaches the engine room, a small knot of workers is gathered between the drowsing titans, all watching the mouth of the main steam conduit on the wall above.

The Engineer draws strange looks as he pushes his way to the front. He knows he must look like a madman: clothes rumpled, no coat or waistcoat, shirt collar open, hair loose and disheveled around his face. He finds he doesn’t much care.

Eliza is at the front of the group, diminutive beside Samuel Baird the gentle giant. The look in her eyes tells the Engineer she knows nothing.

“I thought he was sending you,” says the Engineer somewhat breathlessly.

“So did I, sir.”

“Then where is he, Morton?”

She glances up at the mouth of the pipe.

"Are you sure?”

Eliza nods grimly. “Everyone is here or gone off home for the night. Don’t know who else could be making noise in there.”

And thus the Engineer’s worst fears are confirmed. He has to take several breaths to stabilize his heart, and even then it refuses to beat regularly, though his lungs continue to clear. Mandus did pass through the pipes on New Year’s Eve, yes, but it was sheer dumb luck he survived. Anything might happen to him this time. He might get stuck, his lantern might burn out and leave him lost, he might fall down a shaft and break a limb. Besides that, it’s too soon for the pipes to have cooled from the day’s work. He’ll be a lobster in there.

There is nothing the Engineer can do, of course, and that makes it worse. Helplessness is his deepest, most hated fear. He can only wait to learn Mandus’s fate, shut out from his maker’s mind.

His vision tunnels, and he clasps Eliza’s arm for support.

But the gods are merciful. Before long, a lantern and a shortened broom fall from the mouth of the conduit. Then a figure emerges, grasps for the ladder beneath, misses, and falls to the floor.

“Stay back!” the Engineer orders. He is at Mandus’s side in seconds, turning him over, heedless of the heat pouring off him in waves and the dark coating of gods-know-what on his clothes. He’s hardly aware of the words pouring breathlessly from his mouth: “Mandus you fool you fool you could have killed yourself you could have killed me why do you do these things are you trying to die?” 

Mandus looks hazily up at him, coughs several times. “Are you better?”

The Engineer blinks in disbelief, then swallows his panic with a supreme effort. “Yes, I’m much better, you stupid, sentimental pig,” he says thickly. He turns over Mandus’s clenched hands and hisses at the raw pink-redness of the palms. “Your hands, Mandus… What possessed you not to wait for the pipes to cool?”

“I wasn’t certain _you_ could wait.”

The Engineer’s chest tightens with a tangle of emotions he scarcely understands. To save face, he calls over Samuel Baird, who lifts Mandus almost effortlessly into his arms and takes him back to the house.

888

Once Mandus has cooled down and cleaned up a bit, the Engineer sits him down on the bed to see to his burns. They aren’t as bad as they initially looked, by some miracle, but there are a few blisters that are starting to open. Mandus won’t be working with his hands any time soon.

“Why do you do these things?” the Engineer murmurs as he carefully winds a bandage around Mandus’s palm. His immediate terror has worn off, but left in its wake is a smoldering mix of anger and dread and something that might be the fear of loss. “You don’t know that my life isn’t bound to yours. If you had died, I might have died too, and if I hadn’t, I…” Strangely, he finds he can’t think about what would have happened if he had survived while Mandus did not. “I’ll thank you not to gamble with my life.”

“Is that all?” Mandus asks with an irritatingly knowing smile. “Is that all you fear?”

The Engineer refuses to answer. His breath is coming shallow, and he doesn’t quite know why.

The anger in him now is a close cousin of what he felt when he saw Mandus break all those months ago: the wrongness of something strong crumbling apart. But this time it is deeper and more personal.

“It burns me to see you like this,” he hears himself say before he can stop himself. “You shouldn’t have to sacrifice for these people.”

If Mandus is surprised, he does not say. “Their worth is no less than mine, if not greater. I’ll give them all I can in return for all I took from others – my life, if need be.” Suddenly, he feels something wet on the back of his hand and looks up. “Little one…I’m all right. It was a bit of a nightmare, but I’m all right. Whatever are these tears for?”

“I don’t know.” The Engineer’s face is expressionless, though his voice is scarcely audible.

“So dignified you are now, even in sorrow. Do you remember the first time you ever wept, after the pig’s blood? You were trying to hold your breath.”

The Engineer gives Mandus a shove. He cannot say the words on his tongue, of course, because he cannot admit them even to himself. _I weep because you risked your life to protect me today and I cannot understand why. I weep because I might have lost you and that frightens me and I cannot understand why._

Somewhere through his stinging eyes and tightening chest, he feels Mandus put an arm over his shoulders. Instinct prevails, and he shrugs hard. The arm remains.

“How dare you take advantage of me like this!” he chokes out in a voice that hardly resembles his own. “Contaminating me with your human filth in my moment of weakness!”

“Contaminating you?” Mandus laughs. “This is how sane individuals comfort one another.”

The Engineer lets out an exasperated growl, shrugs once more, then gives in. He is too tired and too frightened and too confused to fight. Tonight, he will be a child. He will rest.

He lets the tension out of his shoulders by slow degrees.

Mandus reaches around with his free hand and smooths down the Engineer’s rumpled collar. “You should sleep well tonight.”

"Mandus?”

"Hmm?”

“I shall sleep well if you promise me one thing.”

“What’s that, little one?”

“No more heroics. Never…” _scare me like this_ “…do this again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I've now introduced a few of Mandus's women workers, this might be a good time to talk a little bit about their historical accuracy. English women and girls did work in mechanized factories from the late 1700s on, particularly the textile industry, where in some places they made up the majority of the workforce because of their small, quick hands. By 1900, women certainly operated machines (albeit for shorter hours and lower pay than their male counterparts), but they did not perform engineering work. That was still a male role, so women would not have carried out the sort of inspections, oversight, and maintenance that Eliza Morton and Nell Glynn do in the Engineer's control room. 
> 
> This is an anachronism on my part, but it's a conscious one. Mandus and the Engineer know they aren't typical employers. Mandus is on a mission to extend humanity to as many people as possible, symbolically reversing the creation of the Man-pigs, which is why he he treats Grace Teague like an equal and runs his factory in unconventional ways. The Engineer...well, the Engineer just doesn't care. He doesn't really want anyone, man or woman, touching his machines, so it's all the same to him. If they share his mechanical intuition and love of machines, he'll tolerate them.


	26. Shift

25\. Shift

The incident with the pipes changes many things. Knowing his operatives successfully handled the control room in his absence allows the Engineer to relinquish his grip a bit, though he doubts he will ever be entirely at ease with humans running his machines. Well, at least they’ve proven they can manage the place without blowing it to kingdom come. That’s something.

More than that, his relationship with Mandus has shifted yet again. The Engineer has been forced to consider the fact that he may still care for his maker – that perhaps he never entirely stopped. He tells himself it was only self-preservation that brought him to Mandus’s side in such a terror when Mandus fell from pipes: after all, they don’t know if the Engineer’s life really is bound to Mandus’s. But if that were the case, why shed tears? Why the instinctive fear of loss? It crosses his mind that loss may be what he finds truly unforgivable, more than Mandus’s sabotage on New Year’s Eve. Mandus is his maker, his father, and he betrayed him. Abandoned him. Tried to kill him.

]He drives that thought smartly from his mind and chalks it up to exhaustion. The push has continued unabated. Though the machines are holding up well, they have not been under such strain for a long time, and he feels it at the end of every day. Still, he cannot entirely suppress his contentment when he lays his weary body on a chaise longue and Mandus comes by to pull a throw over his legs.

The days are full of ceaseless motion, but the evenings hold moments of peace for those clever enough to snatch them. Most of the time, the members of the Mandus household are too tired to do anything but listen to the phonograph and drift off. Sometimes the Engineer plays for them, and sometimes Grace sings. She has a lovely voice, obviously untrained but low and sweet.

At times there are stories. Abbie likes these nights the best.

“Once, in Mexico, there was a jaguar and a quetzal,” Mandus begins one night. He looks down at the girl, resting against his side. “Do you know what a quetzal is, Abbie? It’s a beautiful green and red bird with long, streaming tail feathers. It almost never comes down from the trees.

“Well, the jaguar and the quetzal were blessed by the gods with the power to protect their jungle, and so they did for many years, working in harmony with each other. Each balanced the other’s strengths and weaknesses. Then one day, they received a vision of the future, and it was full of terrible disasters: volcanoes, storms, earthquakes. The jaguar and the quetzal were heartbroken and very afraid, and they wondered how they might prevent the coming calamities.”

The Engineer props himself up on his elbow on the chaise. This is _his_ story, his and Mandus’s.

Mandus goes on. “The jaguar in his grief decided that he would rather destroy the jungle entirely than allow these disasters to befall his subjects. He began drawing out the essence of life from the forest and storing it deep in a temple so that one day he might set all this incredible energy ablaze.

“Now, the quetzal was just as saddened by the visions, but he had faith that although there would be suffering, the animals would ultimately endure. Moreover, he did not believe that the gods would approve of the jungle’s destruction, even in the name of salvation. He and the jaguar engaged a great battle over this, and their ancient harmony was soon forgotten.

“In the end, the quetzal prevailed. He broke into the temple and released the jaguar’s great store of stolen life-force, returning it to the jungle. The jaguar was furious, knowing he could not now gather enough energy to destroy the jungle before the coming disasters struck. He summoned all his cleverness and all his sorrow, wept and pled with the quetzal to change his mind, but nothing helped.”

Here Mandus glances at the Engineer, whose chest is rising and falling heavily beneath his shirt.

Mandus’s voice softens. “Well, the disasters came and went. Volcanoes blocked the sun with smoke; storms threw down ancient trees. Some of the animals were indeed lost, as the jaguar had feared. But in the end the jaguar and the quetzal laid aside their differences and sent forth all their power to save their lands. They cleared the ash from the sky, lifted fallen trees, found new homes and new sources of food for the animals. In time, the forest healed. New plants grew and new animals were born, more wondrous than ever before. Seeing all this, the quetzal was very glad he had not allowed the jaguar to destroy the jungle. So many lives might never have been.

“As for the jaguar, though he never forgot his suffering, he came to recognize that he would have prevented such beauty from coming into being had he gone through with his plan. He also came to understand that it was not his duty to save the whole of the jungle. That was for the gods. No, his duty was merely to protect what he could and use his great power in the name of goodness. You see, Abbie, none of us can help everyone in this world, but we can help a few, and the few are as precious as the many.”

Mandus and the Engineer stay awake for some time after Grace and Abbie have gone to bed, thinking about all this. This is the only way Mandus will ever be able to make his confession, he knows, and yet it has lifted a shadow from his heart.

Finally, the Engineer stirs beneath his throw. The story has left him with a curious mix of bitterness and tentative hope.

“Do you believe the future will be like that?” he murmurs. “Will we survive and go on to better things?”

 _I have to believe that_ , Mandus thinks, _or else…_

“I do,” he says. His voice is a bit too firm. “Humanity has survived many disasters; we’ll manage these, too, and rebuild. And I do believe we will make a difference for our workers, even if they are very few in the grand scheme of things.”

The Engineer turns over, hiding his face. “You know I may die when the wars come. It may prove all too much for me.”

Unseen by the Engineer, Mandus squares his shoulders. “Then I will be the quetzal, and give you hope.”

888

The factory office is always open during break times, but it’s only after Mandus’s self-sacrifice that the workers begin to trickle in. For a while, they suspected that the standing invitation might be an excuse to interrogate them and sound out weak links, but after seeing their employer risk his own safety to protect theirs, this suspicion fades. They come to Mandus slowly in the days after the crisis of the pipes: at first just one or two at a time, then in small groups.

The works manager’s office is one floor above the piston room, so it is always full of tremors and rumbling noise. No one really seems to mind. They pull their chairs to the edge of the oriental rug placed under Mandus’s desk to give the stone-and-metal room a bit of cheer, set their lunch pails on their laps, and speak their minds. Mostly, they want to know if Mandus is out of his mind. He would much like to know that himself.

“Was it hot in the pipes, sir?” asks Nell Glynn one day. Removed from the Engineer’s looming presence, the girl is sweet, curious, and good-humored.

“Hotter than the boiler room, I’m afraid. I can’t say I recommend it.” As Mandus says this, two of the stokers (who are sitting further back to avoid shedding soot on the carpet) whistle softly.

"Was it dark?” Nell goes on. “Eliza said you showed her a drawing that looked like a maze.”

“Well, I had a lantern, lass, and I knew the way.”

“You’ve been in there before?” asks Samuel Baird with an incredulous shake of his great shaggy head. “Have you got it in for yourself, sir?”

Mandus bows his head modestly. He didn’t do it for praise, that’s for certain. “I only wanted to keep you safe. None of you know those pipes like I do.”

There is a general murmur of disbelief at the words “keep you safe.”

“Sir, at my last place, we never _saw_ the gaffer,” says Eliza on his right. “He didn’t go crawling through no steam pipes, that’s for sure and certain.”

Even Fletcher, ever the cynic, speaks up. “I thought it was a joke when you came to the boiler room asking me to tell you about Yorkshire.”

“But I did want to know,” Mandus smiles. He is so glad to have begun to win them over, yet there remains a thorn of doubt and sorrow. They think him a good man. Mandus has to keep himself from shaking.

“Why, sir?” Fletcher challenges, not altogether unkindly.

“Because I happen to like you all, and I should be glad to know you better. How could I work with strangers for twelve hours a day?”

“We’re your machines,” says Eliza with a sort of fatalism.

"But you aren’t, and I don’t hold with that sort of thing. I cannot yet give you shorter hours or lighter work – though I mean to in time – but I can at the very least remember you’re human, for goodness’ sake.”

A shaking of heads follows this statement. _You don’t know how rare that is_ , it says.

Fletcher laughs softly in his throat. “Sitting here talking to us like this… You’re mental, sir.”

“Watch yourself,” Samuel warns.

Mandus waves the foreman off. “I expect I am. So, Baird has told me you all have a plan to shut down more efficiently at the end of the day.”

Mandus can never call himself a good man again, nor can he have a normal life. Nevertheless, as he listens to the workers discuss their proposed routine, eager and alive, he is content. He can still do good things. And if this is not to be his family – if that is a delusion he ought to release as the Engineer released his godhood – he can still strive for a return to humanity. Humanity is, he realizes with a smile, precisely what is blooming around him now.

Yes, his father would indeed think him mad for allowing his workers to eat lunch with him in the factory office. If that is madness, he will go gladly into insanity. Better that than the hypocrisy of his fellow gentlemen, who sit in church every Sunday while ignoring the poor on their doorsteps.

888

Though Mandus has begun to win over his workers, the Engineer cannot say the same for Eliza Morton. Some time has passed since the incident with the pipes before he finds the strength to call her into his office and address the matter.

The two of them eat their lunches in relative silence, exchanging a few casual comments here and there. Mandus, in his quest to be as unorthodox as possible, routinely takes his lunch with the workers, but this is the first time the Engineer has done so. He is surprised to find that, removed from the tense atmosphere of the control room, Eliza is quite amiable. Her face holds the same good humor as when she helped him up from a near-faint on the first day of work.

The Engineer stalls until the last few minutes of the break, when he is forced to come to the point.

“Morton, you and I have our…differences,” he begins hesitantly. He still finds it very awkward to be alone with human beings who are not Mandus.

Eliza laughs. “You think I don’t like you, sir?”

“You disapprove of my methods, at any rate. Given that, why would you volunteer for a nightmarish task to s –” he almost says “save me” – “to put my mind at ease?”

Silence.

“Speak freely,” the Engineer urges. “I do not tolerate cowardice disguised as deference.”

Eliza leans her head thoughtfully on her hand. Then something solemn comes into her face, the same look Mandus always wears when he thinks about the past.

“I like you well enough, sir, even if we disagree on some things. You run a good place. I know you’d sooner die than leave it, so when Mr. Mandus said you were sick… Well, I don’t like to see anyone suffer, and I was the best one for the job.”

“You are very like Mr. Mandus,” the Engineer says wryly, “as you may have noticed. He too is very…self-sacrificing.”

“He’s a good man, sir. Never had a gaffer like him.” Eliza pauses, looking sad again. “My last place… There were always accidents. No one tried to make it better. The masters didn’t care; there were always more folk who needed work. I tried to keep ‘em safe, fix whatever I could, but I didn’t know enough. One day the boiler exploded, and I couldn’t do nothing about that. Some of ‘em died.”

Eliza’s face is set, but her eyes are alight with anger and regret.

“Then I came here,” she goes on, “and I saw you wanted everything to be perfect, sir. I like that, even though it makes you harsh sometimes. I’d rather you be harsh and keep us alive. I thought if I could learn to run the machines as perfect as you, then I could…”

She struggles with the words.

“Save them all?” the Engineer offers. He is surprised at the softness in his own voice. He sounds more like Mandus than himself. Gods, how awful.

Eliza nods mutely.

“Then you are so protective of your colleagues because you are accustomed to standing between them and death, yes?”

Another nod and a quiet, “Yes, sir.”

“Well, you may stand down. Mr. Mandus has made it his mission to keep you all from harm. From his foolishness in the pipes, I believe you can see how determined he is.”

Eliza straightens up, looking at him with new eyes. “And you, sir?” she challenges.

If keeping his workers safe means crawling through pipes coated in gods-know-what the slaughtering process once threw into the air, the Engineer would rather die. These are not the innocents he once sought to protect, and he is not selfless like Mandus. Even so, there is something of nobility about Eliza, though he cannot quite identify it.

He sighs. “Well, if my exacting standards happen to protect you as well as the machines, then I suppose I am as determined as my brother.”

Eliza takes this in stride. “Then we can be friends, sir.”

Oh, gods…friends? The Engineer does not have friends, nor does he want any.

From that day on, things are different between him and Eliza Morton, though it is some time before he realizes why. The nobility he sensed in her was her inability to accept anything less than salvation, and her insistence upon bearing that burden herself. His own tendencies, in other words. Eliza’s fellow workers are her world, and like the Engineer, she has taken it upon herself to protect that world from degradation. Her methods are certainly Mandus’s, but the Engineer can understand the underlying motive.

He also realizes quite belatedly that he _discouraged_ Eliza from trying to carry the weight of the world. Just as Mandus discourages the Engineer from doing the same.

That is rather unsettling.


	27. Saboteur

26\. Reversal

From then on, the Engineer and Eliza Morton are more or less at peace. However, the Engineer’s run-ins with Nell Glynn continue, and the two of them reach a precipice when Nell is taking apart the emergency shutdown levers for a routine cleaning. She has the shafts and handles and little springs and gears laid out neatly in front of her on a dropcloth, and for a while she seems to be doing fine. Then, when she is putting everything back together, she makes the mistake of asking, “Sir, is this wound tight enough?”

This innocuous comment is too much for the Engineer, who has already had a long day and can feel the strain on the machine in his bones.

“What do you think, girl?” he snaps. “What would you do if I weren’t here? You are perfectly capable of judging for yourself!”

Nell looks away quickly to hide her tears, but not before the Engineer catches a glare of anger and hate such as he has never seen on her face.

He thinks little more about it until the next morning. He and Mandus are on the catwalks above the engine room early in the morning, before the mechanics have arrived, the Engineer still yawning and shaking off the night’s chill. They find their path blocked by Nell Glynn. She has a heavy wrench in her hand, poised to drop it into the engines.

The spike of dread that pierces the Engineer then nearly stops his clockwork heart. In his mind, it is New Year’s Eve, and his awareness is going dark bit by bit as Mandus brings his sabotage inexorably closer to the heart of the machine. He finds himself desperately grateful that Mandus is here now, however. Surely he will know how to turn Nell from the terrible thing she is about to do.

Mandus does not attempt to approach the girl standing before him. He just squares his shoulders and says, in a firm but mild voice, “Now really, my dear, you are no saboteur.”

“I am!” Nell insists, hefting the wrench. Her eyes are full of tears, but full of rage as well. “I’ve done it before! I did it at my old place, because the gaffer was a bully who never cared for none of us, and your brother’s just the same!”

Mandus and the Engineer exchange looks. Well, _that_ was something they would have liked to have known before they hired the girl! Why did neither of them sense such rebelliousness? Unless, of course, Nell Glynn is not really a machine-breaker, but a desperate child who has been trodden underfoot one time too many. The very fact that Nell has allowed Mandus to distract her tells him that this is not a calculated act.

“My brother does not intend to bully you,” Mandus goes on steadily. This is true: the Engineer does not particularly care for his operatives, but he does not hate them, either. His sole aim is to maintain the standards that keep his machines safe.

Nell shakes her head furiously. “He does it all the time, especially to me! Every time I ask a question!”

Mandus has set himself between Nell and the Engineer, silently urging his counterpart not to involve himself, but the Engineer cannot resist. “You know the answers!” he tells Nell. “If you would only have confidence –”

“Maybe I would, if you ever said anything kind!”

Mandus throws a warning look over his shoulder at the Engineer, then raises his hands in a gesture of peaceful surrender. “If this has been troubling you, Nell, I wish you had brought it to me sooner. You know I listen. Now you are endangering the livelihood of every one of your friends, as well as your own.”

Nell wavers for a moment, then stretches her thin arm out over the railing, threatening to release her instrument of destruction. The Engineer clutches Mandus’s arm for support.

“Does it matter now?” she demands. “I’m going to be sacked.”

Mandus takes a calming breath, drawing on his years of fatherhood. His heart is racing with dread, but not quite as hard as the Engineer’s. This is not a saboteur, he tells himself. This is a hurt, frightened child – much like his counterpart.

“You won’t be going anywhere if you give that spanner to me,” he says gently. The understanding and easy grace with which he conducted his interviews returns to him now. “This is a place of second chances. Do you want a second chance, Nell Glynn? No one need know about any of this.”

Nell falters. “Are you lying?”

Mandus shakes his head. “If you promise me there will be no more of these threats, I promise you my brother will treat you – all of you – with greater moderation.”

The Engineer nods fervently. He doesn’t much care what he has to do; he only knows he cannot breathe and his whole body is shaking and he wants this to be over.

“This isn’t about _you_ , sir.” Nell has withdrawn her hand a bit – Mandus’s clemency has apparently unsettled her. “You’re kind. You didn’t…you didn’t let Eliza go into the pipes…”

Mandus knows he cannot allow this to go on much longer, and Nell’s words offer him the chance of bringing it to an end. “Then you must trust me, child. I will ensure my brother keeps his end of the bargain.”

 _And you know I will_ , comes Mandus’s thought. _I can see everything you do if I so choose._

The Engineer says nothing. His knees are going weak.

Nell withdraws the wrench a few more inches, almost unconsciously.

Mandus senses his chance. “You know,” he says, “if we are ever sharp with you, it’s only because we know you can manage it.”

“Eliza told me that too…” Nell says uncertainly.

Perfect. If Nell has already heard these words from her best friend, she will not be so inclined to disbelieve them now.

“We know how bright you all are,” Mandus goes on. Although he speaks the words out of need, he means every one of them sincerely. “And you too, Nell Glynn. My brother has told me you have an intuition, a gift for machinery. He only wants you to do the very best you can. He critiques you because he has hope for you.”

Mandus did not wholly expect this to work, but it does. Nell’s tears overflow.

“You…you have hope for me?”

“I do. We both do.”

“No one ever…said that before…”

The wrench clatters to the catwalk as Nell covers her face with her hands. Mandus kneels beside her and holds her gently until her tears stop. She leans into him so willingly that he knows she must be desperate for affection and security.

Finally, Nell wipes her eyes. “I can really stay, sir?”

“Yes, you can stay, but the next time you find yourself in trouble, you come to my office and talk to me. I won’t catch you up here again, will I?”

Nell shakes her head. “I didn’t think…I didn’t think I had a choice…”

“I understand. Believe it or not, I too once thought I had no choice but to destroy everything. I lost my wife and my young sons, and then I lost myself to anger and cruelty. It took far longer than it should have, but I came back from the abyss in the end, and this place is the result. There is always another way, Nell, even when it’s difficult.”

This is not the full story, of course, but Nell Glynn need not know that.

She draws back, wiping the last of her tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry, sir…”

“I know you are, dear. Now run along before you change your mind.”

Nell smiles faintly as she turns to leave. Mandus lets out a long breath as she vanishes into the dimness. Adrenaline is still thrumming through his veins, but it is fading now. His paternal instincts have served him well once again.

Only after Nell is gone does the Engineer sit down heavily on the catwalk, hand to his heart.

888

Nell’s near-sabotage shakes the Engineer to his core. Not only did it raise harrowing memories of New Year’s Eve, but it also gave him a stark demonstration of what it is to be on the receiving end of senseless destruction. For the first time, he understands what Mandus must have felt that night at the end of December, with the world on the brink of oblivion. The apocalypse isn’t nearly so inviting when someone else is holding the keys.

The Engineer is restless all that day and into the evening, trembling and nearly dropping things and losing his train of thought. He goes to bed early, hoping to calm down. Instead, he dreams that Nell drops the spanner and it sends him into paroxysms of agony as his machines scream and stall. His body is still spasming when he wakes, tangled in his bedcovers and chilled from head to toe. He is so utterly terrified that he finds himself at Mandus’s bedside, shivering and wrapped in a throw, without knowing how he got there.

With his counterpart’s panic to spur his mind, Mandus begins drifting toward wakefulness even before the Engineer reaches him. He comes quickly around when the Engineer gives him a shake.

“Mandus,” the Engineer hisses, speaking very fast, “you know I would never come to you unless I had no other choice, but I can’t stop thinking about it –”

“About the sabotage?” Mandus sits up and draws the Engineer to his side, tucking a heavier blanket around him.

The Engineer nods in the dark. “I woke from a dream about it, and I was in such terrible pain…”

Mandus is fumbling for the lamp on the desk across the room by now. Turning it on, he beholds his counterpart’s bloodlessly white face and trembling frame. Were he a crueler man, he might have several things to say, including “I told you so,” but he bites his tongue. He pours a glass of water from the pitcher on the night-table and presses it into the Engineer’s hands.

“I’m not thirsty…” the Engineer protests weakly.

"I know, but it will calm you.”

The Engineer does not see how, but after a few delicate sips, he finds that he can indeed think more clearly. The cool liquid is refreshing: not so sweet as Compound X, but it will do. After a time, his shaking comes under control. He does not, however, trust himself to speak. He might say something like, “Thank you.”

“This is the first time since New Year’s Eve that you’ve stood to lose everything you love, isn’t it?” says Mandus gently.

Not quite. The first time since New Year was when Mandus went into the pipes –

No, no, no.

“Well, I trust you’ve learned something useful,” Mandus goes on. He puts an arm carefully around his counterpart, feels the catlike ripple of the Engineer’s muscles. “You know, you don’t flinch as much as you used to.”

The Engineer shakes his head feebly. “You are making me soft, Oswald Mandus.”

“No, you are growing up.”

Is he? He doesn’t feel it, sitting here shivering beneath his maker’s arm and contemplating the abyss. This is exactly why he never wanted to be human: this dread, this terror of loss.

Is that why Mandus is so desperate to protect Abbie: because her youth is beautiful and fragile and _fleeting_? Then the Engineer ought to protect her, too, so the pigs never eat her heart.

888

Abbie was forbidden to see the Engineer when the pipes made him ill, lest his condition frighten her. She knew something was very wrong with him nonetheless, but she said nothing of it. Then, on the night the Engineer wakes from his dream of sabotage, she hears his harsh, frightened breathing and, not knowing the true cause, thinks his sickness has returned.

The next night, she falls asleep on the rug in the parlor. Mandus is dozing too, so the Engineer scoops her up to carry her to bed. As he reaches the stairs, Abbie stirs in his arms and asks groggily, “Sir, are you going away?”

The Engineer stops, the boards creaking beneath his feet. “Going where?”

“Away.” Her voice is unusually, disturbingly solemn for one so young.

He thinks he knows what she means, but he lets her speak for herself.

“People get sick and they go away,” Abbie says.

Of course: the girl is an orphan. Someone might have told her that her parents died of disease, and if not, she has surely seen it happen elsewhere. She is terrified of it happening again, in this place where she has found a home at last. That home is her shield against the world, just like the Engineer’s godhood.

Abbie’s face is turned away, but the Engineer can feel her tiny clasped hands trembling at the back of his neck.

He closes his eyes for a moment, wishing Mandus were here to manage this.

“I pushed myself too far, that’s all,” he tells the girl, as gently as his nature will allow. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She nuzzles her face into his shoulder. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Mr. Mandus said you don’t take care of yourself.”

“Oh, he did, did he? I take better care than he does, and you may tell him I said so!”

He feels Abbie’s muffled giggle buzz against his shoulder.

He shakes himself free of the warm, contented feeling spreading through him. This is too much sugar for him, far too much.

But later, lying in his own bed, he realizes that his moment of compassion does not disgust him at all. Ordinarily, he would scorn all such displays as weakness, but this felt much closer to strength.

He felt Abbie’s heartbeat as he held her: an affirmation of life, steadfast and sacred.


	28. Push and Pull

27\. Push and Pull

The push continues to be chaotic and unpredictable, though not unpleasantly so. Its latest surprise comes in the form of a young woman named Lilian Evans – or Lil, as she prefers. She has perhaps the strangest story of any of the operatives. She was born to an upper middle-class family, but she never felt herself suited to that sort of life, so she left home to learn the meaning of real work.

At first, the Engineer is convinced the girl is just another romantic hoping to find enlightenment through hardship. But then she says something interesting:

“When I was a child, I got into trouble for taking apart clocks. No one ever seemed to realize they worked just as well when I put them back together.”

This strikes him favorably, so he considers Lil Evans more carefully. He looks past her soft, smooth hands and her tidy hair (artfully arranged to fringe her eyes), past her fine clothes and gracious manners, trying to read the soul beneath. He senses intuition, courage, curiosity, and a streak of recklessness he can certainly appreciate. The movements of her hands bespeak dexterity and cleverness.

He hands her his pocket watch and tells her to return it to him fully functional. Then he and Mandus sit and watch in wonder as Lil Evans uses the delicate tools they have provided to tease apart the mechanism. Sometimes she pauses to examine the elegant little gears as she sets them on the desk. The Engineer can sense her marveling at them, can almost hear the gears of her own mind turning in smooth motion.

It takes her some time, but when she returns the watch, its ticking is steadier than ever.

Mandus looks up at the Engineer, who cannot suppress a grin. “Did anyone teach you to do this?” he asks the young woman.

Lil shakes her head. Her fine features are flushed with satisfaction. “No, sir. I worked it out on my own.”

“Then you have a gift, Miss Evans.”

Mandus warns her, of course, that work as a mechanic may come as a shock to her. It will sometimes be dirty, sometimes strenuous. Lil only smiles. “I’m a fast learner, sir.”

Her name is a coincidence, of course. She really looks nothing like his Lilibeth. She is as dark-haired and dark-eyed as Mandus himself, while Lily had locks of candlelight. Still, there is something about the fire in her eyes that reminds him strongly of his wife. Lily never cared for convention, either. He can still remember her getting up on the dining room table in her stockinged feet and dancing to his cylinder phonograph, ardent love burning in her face.

Lil Evans is given a chance.

Her gift for machinery does not entirely shield her from the realities of working life. Eliza in particular, with her deep-seated need for order, does not appreciate a newcomer being brought on in the midst of a push. Nor does she understand why this well-off young woman has been given a position: she came here by choice, but so many have no choice at all. Nell, on the other hand, is glad the Engineer has someone new to critique (though he has been much quieter since Nell’s near-sabotage). She quickly becomes Lil’s mentor.

“However do you read all these gauges at once?” Lil mutters somewhat frantically one day. “I can’t keep them straight.”

“I have a dance,” Nell says, squeezing Lil’s hand. “I’ll teach you.”

Lil looks at her gratefully. “Thank goodness I love dancing, then.”

When next the Engineer comes in, Lil and Nell are engaged in a series of subtle twists and turns. He thinks very little of this, and he does not recognize it as a dance, but that is indeed what it is: a dance of machinery.

He is quite sure Lil will run screaming from the complex within a week, but she does not. Her cosseted upbringing takes a toll. Her hands soon blister and her fatigue becomes evident, but she never complains. She just smiles at the Engineer with fire in her eyes.

One day, she and Nell stay behind to disassemble and clean the emergency shutdown levers. The Engineer walks in to find Lil struggling to unbolt one of the shafts from its housing. The young woman is clearly using all her strength, sweat gleaming on her brow.

"Don’t help her, Nell Glynn,” the Engineer says. “Let her do it herself. She can take as long as she needs.”

Nell nods unhappily and goes on murmuring soft encouragement.

When the Engineer returns, he has the pleasure of seeing Lil twist the shaft loose with a sudden jerk. It sends her tumbling backward, but when she recovers, she is still holding her spanner. She looks up at him with a defiant grin.

The Engineer gives her an approving nod. “I must say, Evans, I thought you would give up. Perhaps I misjudged you.”

Lil pushes back her sweat-slick bangs. “I never give up, sir.”

After that, the Engineer finds less and less need to watch over Lil. She learns remarkably quickly for one who has never done any sort of work, except perhaps dancing at all-night balls. She never once complains. Indeed, she gives no sign at all of how difficult this is for her, not even when Eliza takes to calling her “m’lady” in a most disparaging manner.

Then one day, the Engineer finds Lil sitting on the floor of the engine room after everyone has gone, head on her knees and shaking gently with sobs. The Engineer immediately feels uncomfortable, but he knows he must do something. Mandus would have his head if he left a young woman crying on the floor.

He comes quietly to her side and sits down. In her despondency, Lil does not notice him until he clears his throat. Then she looks up and hurriedly wipes her face.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she says, putting on a brave smile that does not reach her reddened eyes. “I’m all right, really.”

"Don’t play games with me, Evans.”

Without really knowing why, he rests one hand on the fencing of the quiescent steam engine behind him and allows the other to hover over Lil’s. He recalls how it felt when he sent his own energy into Mandus, and he seeks the same sort of soul-melding now, but with the machines. He imagines himself as a conduit, conveying the exhaustless strength of the engine, invisible and nigh-omnipotent, into Lil.

The effect comes quickly. Lil’s whole body relaxes, and she lets out a contented breath. She flexes her blistered fingers experimentally and does not wince.

She laughs under her breath. “What did you do?” she asks wonderingly.

The Engineer does not tell her, of course, though he suspects she may sense something of what has happened here. He has seen her rest her hand against the control panels and speak softly as if the machines can hear her.

“Your pain will return, but you should feel stronger for a little while,” he says instead. “Your hands will callus soon enough. Morton will get used to you.”

These are not exactly gentle words, but they are the gentlest the Engineer can manage. Lil seems to understand that. She composes herself with a visible effort and allows him to pull her to her feet. “Thank you for that, sir,” she says. “You know…Nell told me you were stern, and you are, but…it was so kind of you to make me feel better just now.”

The Engineer scoffs. “You slander me, Evans. ‘Kind’ indeed! Now, you’d best go home and get some rest.”

It is only later, as usual, that the Engineer realizes what a gift he gave Lil: a bit of the factory’s power, secret and sacred. A month ago, he would never have done such a thing. He would have guarded that power fastidiously and kept it for his own, yet now he has shared it with one in need. He cannot really say why.

Perhaps it is because he and Evans understand each other, or at least they are kindred spirits in their love for machinery. Or perhaps he is becoming more like Mandus by the day.

That is a dreadful prospect.

888

Lil is not the only one exhausted by the continuing push. Mandus has taken every opportunity to lend his aid, sometimes in assembly, sometimes in the boiler room, sometimes on the shop floor. He has learned the workings of a wood lathe, and Silas trusts him enough to turn simple wooden spindles. Though his muscles no longer ache, it has been many years since he last performed such continuous work. The Engineer urges him to ease up, but of course Mandus does not listen.

Mandus has less time than ever to duck away and shake with guilt, but he desperately needs it. The workers look to him as a selfless, compassionate leader in a way that has become unbearable. Sometimes he forgets the past for a while, long enough to have enjoyable lunchtime conversations with his operatives, but the weight of his secrets always presses in again with the inexorable brutality of a vise. Every innocent smile, every kind word reminds him of what he is and can never be again. He begins to wonder if this will all become too much one day, and if he will have any warning when it does.

One night, he comes downstairs after a bath only to collapse on the rug. The Engineer, who is himself shuddering with the echoes of the machines’ exhaustion, opens one eye.

“Mandus, what…?” He peeks over the edge of his chaise longue. “Go to bed.”

“I don’t want to move,” Mandus mutters into the rug.

“I told you to stay in your office today. You’ll run yourself into the ground.”

Mandus turns his head aside to look up at his other. “You fret over me like a mother hen. When did that start?”

“When you nearly killed yourself in the pipes.”

“I did no such thing.”

The Engineer can see that argument will be useless tonight. He lifts himself laboriously from his prone position, takes a throw from the sofa, and settles it over Mandus. “Suit yourself.”

He flops back down on the chaise and waits for sleep to take him. He scarcely notices when Abbie comes and pulls up the blanket that has slipped from his shoulders. “You’re cold, sir,” she murmurs. Then she sits down at the foot of the chaise, taking up her watchful position between Mandus and the Engineer.

This protective gesture, entirely too mature for a girl of ten, brings Mandus to the breaking point. Abbie’s love for him and the Engineer is plain – a love they do not merit, Mandus especially. He forfeited that privilege in Mexico.

His tormented mind will not let him sleep, not even when Grace comes to take Abbie to bed. She is used to her employers’ odd sleeping habits, so she says nothing to either of them. With the two young women gone, Mandus allows the spasms in his chest to take hold.

Hearing these soft, sharp sounds, the Engineer stirs. He rolls onto his side, sighing in exasperation.

Mandus looks pleadingly up at him.

“You are troubled tonight,” the Engineer states dispassionately.

“Come sit with me,” Mandus whispers. “Take my mercy and my softness from me as you once did. Take my feelings away.”

“No, Mandus. I’ve told you, I am not your keeper.” 

“ _Please_.”

Knowing there is no escape, the Engineer slips reluctantly from the chaise and kneels beside Mandus on the rug.

“What’s the matter with you?” the Engineer says, soft but fierce. “I’ve been struggling for months to find my purpose, tearing myself apart. Your purpose is sitting squarely in your lap, but you’re too much of a coward to take it. Gods, you are infuriating.”

Before he realizes it, his hand is on Mandus’s wrist, just like the night before work started, and Mandus’s pulse is settling beneath his fingers.

Mandus blinks pain-hazed eyes. “What do you –”

“You know perfectly well what I mean: fatherhood.”

“I don’t deserve –”

“Oh, for gods’ sakes, Mandus, you think far too much. Did I not teach you to reach out and take what you want and never let it go? Love them, Mandus. Love them all.”

Words drift to the surface through a haze of memory and dream, words the Engineer spoke to Mandus when their partnership was still young. That bitter condemnation – _This world is a machine, a machine for pigs, fit only for the slaughtering of pigs_ – but then something else, something almost tender: _But I will save them, Mandus. I will save them all. Because I love them. Because you created me to love them all._

The Engineer is undoubtedly invoking these old words now, though he does not know it. Mandus does. The Engineer cannot fulfill this dream; his love for humanity was always dubious at best, but Mandus’s is not. At least, not anymore.

Mandus swallows hard, torment written on his face. “They respect me, even admire me, but they shouldn’t –”

"Not this again. Have you not earned their respect? What other master would go crawling through pipes to spare his workers? What other master would take his meals with his operatives? I would never make such sacrifices.”

Mandus shakes his head. “My life is not precious to me for its own sake. I live to do what good I can, and I’ll die for that, too, if need be.”

“Then do your good deeds, and if your workers admire you for it, let them.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“Because it is.” _Because you love them. Because you were created to love them all._

Mandus eyes his counterpart critically. “Still such a child. You would have been a very black-and-white god.”

Yes, the Engineer would have been, but since then he has seen that such a god would not suit this misty gray world. He has seen a girl talked out of sabotage by a kind word; a woman willing to risk her safety for companions she hardly knew; a foreman carrying his employer like a babe; a child making dragons of machines; a debutante expertly taking apart a pocket watch. There is so much more to humanity than the Engineer thought, and there is no clean division between depravity and glory. There are countless positions in between: everyday struggles, everyday triumphs over hardship.

This is all so terribly difficult for him to process. It frightens him, this ambiguity. It’s so much easier to think of the world in terms of pigs and gods. He can no longer do so, but Mandus can. Mandus has a very simple choice before him which is really no choice at all: he can do what he wants so desperately to do, or he can despair. From the Engineer’s perspective, Mandus’s world is still black and white. That is a precious gift, and yet Mandus refuses it. This threatens to send the Engineer mad with jealousy and longing.

He lets out his breath in a long sigh. “Just love them, Mandus,” he repeats wearily, “or you will do nothing at all.”

Mandus is not entirely convinced, but he allows the Engineer to pull him to his feet and usher him up the stairs.

That night, Mandus dreams of Abbie as a young woman, dressed in white for her wedding with a crown of meadow flowers in her hair. She takes his arm – her father’s arm – with a radiant smile. His heart races with pride and joy as he walks her down the aisle.

He wakes with tears on his face, but for once they are not sad.

Perhaps the Engineer is right. Perhaps decisions made with the heart, not the mind, are sometimes the wisest of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The italicized passage towards the end of this chapter, starting with, "But I will save them, Mandus," comes from unused Machine for Pigs content the Chinese Room posted on their website back in 2016. These pages no longer exist as far as I can see, so you have to get at them through the Wayback Machine. I'll put links you can copypaste (the embedding isn't working for some reason) to all six parts. If it tells you it can't load, you should be able to click "Clear" and still see most if not all of the page. It's really interesting to see what stayed the same through the development process and how different many other things were early on.
> 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160812204900/http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/blog/remember-amfp-part-1  
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160812204900/http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/blog/remember-amfp-part-2  
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160812204900/http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/blog/remember-amfp-part-3  
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160812204900/http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/blog/remember-amfp-part-4  
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160812204900/http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/blog/remember-amfp-part-5  
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160812204900/http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/blog/remember-amfp-part-6


	29. Precious Things

28\. Precious Things

After that night, Mandus renews his commitment to give Abbie and Grace the best life he can. To test his resolve to love them freely, he plans a holiday to the Brighton seaside: nothing extensive, just an overnight stay. That will be enough to show him whether he really is prepared to have a family again, as he so wishes.

Reactions to this proposed excursion vary.

“I really ought to mind the house, sir,” Grace says deferentially, albeit with a light in her eyes that gives the lie to her reluctance. “Take Abbie and the other Mr. Mandus and enjoy yourselves.”

“You’ve earned a rest, my dear lady,” Mandus insists, “after all you’ve done to keep our heads on straight through this mad summer. Get out of the city, take some sea air.”

“Well, if you’re sure…”

“We’ll lock up properly, don’t you worry.”

After this, Grace takes very little convincing. Mandus has the pleasure of seeing a flush of excitement suffuse her face.

Abbie takes no convincing at all. She has never been on a train or visited the sea, and the prospect of doing both at once thrills her. She practically throws herself into Mandus’s arms when he gives her the news. He allows himself to spin her around, but only once.

Abbie has just one concern: “Do I have to dress nice?”

Mandus has steadily expanded Abbie’s wardrobe since she joined his household (he could hardly reduce it), and he has learned that Abbie has no interest in fancy clothes. Mandus was much the same when he was her age. Her refusal to wear anything elegant for more than an hour does concern him a bit in this case, however: the pleasure pier at Brighton is a well-to-do place. But then, he doesn’t suppose Abbie will want to visit the smoking rooms and fine restaurants. She’ll be content to play down by the water and perhaps try sorbet for the first time, and for that, she needn’t look like a china doll.

Mandus takes Abbie in his arms. “You’ll need to look smart,” he tells her gently, “but I promise you’ll still be able to play. It’s not as if you’re going to church.”

She makes him shake her hand to seal his promise.

The Engineer, unsurprisingly, is the sticking point. His response to Mandus’s proposal is a grumbling string of excuses: “No, Mandus. The crowds, the heat, all that bright sun…”

"They do have sunshades, you know.”

The Engineer straightens up on his chaise, folding his throw more tightly around him. “I have absolutely no desire to socialize.”

“You needn’t. Just be there for Abbie’s sake, and for Grace’s. You don’t mind talking to them, do you?”

Dark eyes narrow. “How can I leave my control room?”

“Ah, there’s the crux of it.”

“Really, Mandus, how do you expect me to –”

“The push is waning now, and you’ve left the control room before.”

“Only because I could neither breathe nor speak!”

“Take this as a challenge, then. See if you can trust your workers to do what you’ve taught them so well.”

“I have enough troubles of my own without –”

“Just consider it. Goodnight, little one.”

Left alone, the Engineer lets out a sharp breath. He cannot countenance leaving the machine shop to a group of human pigs, but nor can he shrink from Mandus’s challenge and demonstrate his weakness. What, then, is he to do?

Put up a fight, of course. When all else fails, put up a fight.

So he does. He has to be propelled forcefully out of the house on the morning of their departure. Mandus thinks he is being dramatic, but he truly cannot find it in his heart to step over the threshold of the manor. It’s as if a physical barrier has been thrown up in his way, or else the Machine itself has reached out with unseen tendrils and tethered him to the spot.

Mandus puts a hand on his arm and pulls him outside. “It’s only one night,” he says, trying to be firm and soothing all at once. “You spent far longer in the Hebrides.”

“My factory was not full of humans then.”

Mandus chuckles gently. “You are human too, lest you forget. You need to hand Eliza and her colleagues the keys, dear one. You oughtn’t worry: she shares your standards.”

 _Easy for you_ , the Engineer thinks. _You do not hear the song of the machines. You do not feel it every time they scream._

He relaxes a bit when he boards the train. It soothes him to be aboard such a marvelous device, even amidst so many other people. Reaching out with his soul, he feels the steam flowing through the locomotive just as he does at home. Abbie’s bright smile helps, too. She looks prim but comfortable today in a white dress and blue-and-white striped kerchief, her curls tucked beneath her ribboned hat. Once, she stands up and puts her head out the window to watch the white plume of steam streaming from the engine like breath on a winter day. Mandus pulls her back before she can get covered in soot and cinders, but the Engineer tells her with a softening of his eyes that her response is quite appropriate.

Brighton Station brings more marvels. Abbie cannot keep her eyes from the latticed cast-iron-and-glass roof, which showers passengers and engines alike with a rain of clear sunlight. They smell salt as soon as they step outside to wait for their horse-drawn cab down to the beach. It’s so different from the musty sewer smell of the Thames, fresh and invigorating.

The Engineer says nothing on the half-mile ride to the beachfront. He does not want to be here under the bright eye of Huitzilopochtli, but that’s no reason to spoil Abbie and Grace’s fun. The two point and smile at the elegant multistory hotels and residences that line the waterfront, all sculpted stone and rows of windows and wrought-iron balconies.

Then they approach the beach, and they have their first sight of the newly built Palace Pier. The confection of a theater at the seaward end is still concealed by scaffolding, offering no more than a glimpse of pointed domes sprung from _The Thousand and One Nights_. The rest is marvelous enough. The sheer scale of the pier, with its latticed supports striding far out into the water, immediately impresses itself. Trios of delicate wrought-iron arches studded with electric lights line much of that length. All feature lacy curls, like climbing vines caught in metal, and all are crowned by slender spires. One can only imagine what it must look like in the evening, with all the lights illuminated.

Abbie cannot stop turning in her seat, trying to see everything all at once. As he watches her, Mandus’s heart takes up her joy and mirrors it back to him a hundred times over. Even the Engineer can feel it. His sullenness lifts a few degrees.

When at last they reach the wooden changing sheds at the edge of the pebbled beach and the sparkling water unfolds before them, Abbie cannot be restrained. She darts ahead, heedless of the uneven ground. The Engineer is left to trail after her while Mandus and Grace see about finding chairs and an umbrella. The sunlight on the water dazzles his eyes so that he has to squint and shield his face. He nearly loses sight of Abbie.

“The sea is so big!” she calls back to him, hands cupped around her mouth to make herself heard over the surf and breeze. She twirls around on the spot.

“Much bigger than you, so don’t lose your footing and fall in,” he calls back. When did he start to sound so much like Mandus?

Abbie ignores him. She trots back up the beach a little ways and plants her feet. “Here! This is our spot!”

Sighing, the Engineer goes to stand beside her. He tries not to think about the heat and the sun on his pale skin as they wait for Mandus and Grace.

His mood improves somewhat once he has a comfortable seat and some shade. Grace takes Abbie back down to the water’s edge, where they both shed their shoes and take tentative steps into the foam. Mandus and the Engineer watch in companionable silence. They see so little of such innocence, and it does their hearts good. Abbie is fearless of the water despite never having seen it before. More than once, she pulls Grace along as she darts in and out of the lapping waves, holding down her hat with one hand. She never seems to tire of her game, although the waves never change their behavior.

After a while, Grace returns, and Mandus gladly takes her place. Grace sits down on the Engineer’s right and brushes down her skirts, which are damp at the hem. Her dark auburn hair is escaping her headscarf and her freckled face is flushed with warmth and pleasure.

“Not much for the sun, sir?” she asks amiably.

“Not much, no. Nor are you, I should think, with your red hair. I must admit the breeze is nice enough, though.”

“Even though it smells like fish?”

Grace is grinning sidelong at him, and the Engineer very much suspects she is poking fun at his keen sense of smell. Today, however, he lets it pass without comment.

"I brought a book with me,” Grace goes on, reaching into her carryall. “A mystery. I know you prefer your engineering journals, but…would you like to hear some?”

In another time, the Engineer would almost certainly have brushed her off without a second thought. He would never have considered engaging in such frivolity with another human being. But that was before New Year, before the pig’s blood, before the fire tower, before the reopening. Now, with the good salt breeze toying with his hair, the thought is rather pleasant. If he focuses on his patch of beach, he can almost ignore the forest of chairs and chattering people around him.

He leans towards Grace so he can see her book. Soon they are both engrossed in trying to work out who killed the lord of the manor – the dispossessed son, the woman scorned, the disgruntled gardener, or the less-than-pious rector. This is far from high literature, but for an afternoon, for two people who are almost friends, it is enough. When Mandus and Abbie return, they find the man who hated everything and the woman who hates nothing taking turns reading pages aloud.

Abbie takes the Engineer’s hand and gently uncurls his fingers. She places several pebbles in his palm. The rolling sea has smoothed them to a glassy sheen and sharpened their bands and speckles of color. As the Engineer examines them, he realizes that coming from a girl who has never owned a single thing, this is an extraordinary gift.

It is with a sudden tightness in his throat that the Engineer says, “I cannot possibly take these from you, small one. You found them.”

Abbie says nothing, just moves on and makes her present to Grace with the same incongruous solemnity.

“My pockets are full as well, I assure you,” Mandus says to the Engineer under his breath. “I feel it might as well be gold.”

“Why?” the Engineer asks, because it is his way to question Mandus, though in his heart he knows the answer.

“Because these pebbles and shells are happiness, a child’s happiness. What could be more precious?”

 _Indeed_ , the Engineer thinks. _Here is the goodness I cannot allow the world to take from her._

He does not say this aloud, though Mandus surely hears. Instead, he grasps Mandus’s arm and tugs him down into his vacated chair. “Get some shade before you burn.”

Mandus smiles knowingly. “There you are again. A mother bear, just like Eliza Morton.”

To this, the Engineer can only groan in disgust.

Grace has packed them all a light lunch of roast chicken, apples, and hearty bread for sandwiches. It’s not as cold as it might be, but it will keep their stomachs from rumbling for a while. As they eat, the Engineer finds his mind turning back towards the machine shop and all the things that might be going wrong.

“You mentioned Morton,” he mutters. “She and Evans have surely had a dozen fights by now. Morton resents Evans.”

“Eliza Morton knows to keep her personal affairs out of her work,” says Mandus easily. “Nell will keep the peace. She loves them both too much to watch them fight.”

“Nell Glynn can hardly keep peace within herself, or have you forgotten?”

“Now, now.” Mandus’s dark eyes, turned reddish-brown in the sunlight, flash dangerously. “We did not come here to discuss work. No more shop talk from you.”

The Engineer realizes quite suddenly that he hardly knows how to talk about anything other than his godhood and his machines. “What, then?”

“Well, what are you going to do to celebrate the end of the push?” Grace asks.

Mandus closes his eyes. “Sleep. Give my arms and shoulders a rest.”

“Get those pipes cleaned properly,” the Engineer adds, “and with fewer heroics.”

“I should give the workers some time off,” Mandus muses. “It’s a bit late to plan a company gathering now, but perhaps for All Hallows.”

The Engineer raises an eyebrow. All Hallows would be the perfect for a bit of petty revenge, and he knows some of the workers would be willing to involve themselves…

The conversation fades from his consciousness as he begins to scheme. When he comes back to himself, Mandus is saying to him, “…some lemon ice? It should suit you, little one.”

The Engineer looks Mandus full in the face. “Why? Because it’s sour?”

Mandus does not waver. “If the shoe fits...”

The sweet-sour sorbets are delightfully cold: the perfect refreshment for a day at the seaside. Abbie winces through her smile as the chill fills her mouth, and Mandus’s heart twists. He can so vividly picture his children doing the same.

He forces himself to smile back at her, and the moment passes. When they have drained the melting dregs and returned their glasses to the vendor, Mandus decides to take Abbie to the nearby Brighton Aquarium. Grace and the Engineer do not mind staying behind. Someone has to hold their places on the beach, and besides, have their mystery novel to read.

“How did you like your first lemon ice?” Mandus asks Abbie on the way up from the beach.

Her face wrinkles a little. “It made my face hurt, but it tasted good.”

“Eat slowly next time, dearest.”

Abbie looks up at him skeptically.

“I know,” Mandus smiles, “eating slowly isn’t much fun, is it?”

The aquarium is an elegant place even from the outside, with a clock tower rising from the façade like a gingerbread sculpture. The inside is little less than a cathedral. The ceiling is vaulted in the Gothic style, upheld by ornately capped pillars carved with sea animals. Abbie is nearly as taken with the women in their ruffled skirts and the men in their waistcoats and watch chains as with the tanks set into the walls. She is delighted, too, with the sound her little boots make on the black-and-white tiled floor.

They wander as long as they wish, gazing at the fish going about their business. Abbie sometimes dances through the rippling blue light the tanks cast on the floor. She is most curious about the smaller fish that dart and flash through the rocks in their enclosures. Her eyes flick back and forth, trying to follow them all. Once again Mandus sees in her the ghosts of his sons, who were both curious about the natural world. _They should be here with me_ , he thinks, but of course they cannot be, and denying Abbie a father's love will not bring them back.

“Do they sleep?” the girl asks when returns to Mandus’s side.

“I suppose they must. All animals do, including us.”

“Doesn’t the water push them?”

“Well…yes, it must do.”

"So they wake up somewhere else?”

Mandus laughs gently, smoothing the curls that have escaped Abbie’s hat. “How do you think of all these questions? Yes, they must sometimes wake up somewhere strange, but you will never have to do that again. You have a home now.”

Abbie rewards Mandus’s hesitant affection with a radiant grin. Then she takes his hand and pulls him off to the next tank.

Eventually, they make their way to the rooftop terrace, where Abbie is far more enchanted by the wooden roller-skating rink than the view of the sea.

"Can we?” she asks eagerly. 

“ _You_ can, if you like.” His old schoolmaster would have said, “You _may_.” Mandus always hated that. “I’ve no talent for it, I’m afraid.”

Abbie is fearless on her rented skates. She laughs off every fall she takes, and she gets her balance remarkably quickly. It isn’t long before she no longer needs to hold out her arms to steady herself, and after that she picks up a fair bit of speed. What she lacks in grace, she makes up in joy.

When she comes back to Mandus, grinning from ear to ear and flushed with pleasure, Mandus takes her in his arms and holds her tight to keep his heart from bursting. He is so proud of her, this girl who has known such hardship but refuses to break. She is stronger than him.

When Abbie has had her fill, she and Mandus return to the beach to give Grace and the Engineer their turn at the aquarium. As they walk off together, Mandus is amazed to see that the Engineer has offered Grace his arm.

 _Is he ill?_ Mandus thinks. _He’s never so gentlemanly, and he hates to be touched._

Abbie, too, has noticed this strange behavior.

“We’ve softened him, haven’t we?” Mandus says.

Abbie just grins.

By the time Grace and the Engineer return, it’s getting on into evening and all four of them are ready for supper. They pack up their chairs and umbrella and return them to the rental shed, Grace slings her now-empty hamper over her shoulder, and they set off in search of food.

Mandus knows neither Grace nor Abbie would be comfortable in any of the finer establishments, so they find a food vendor on the waterfront and settle down to watch the sky turn red. As it happens, this is the best decision they could have made. The breeze is refreshing, the food is simple but satisfying, and the evening color could not be better. Abbie has never had fish and chips before, but she finds she has a ravenous appetite for it. By the time they have filled their bellies and licked the salt from their fingers, there is just enough sunset left for a stroll down the Palace Pier.

The electric lights on the archways are on now, row after row of them. The pier has become a fairy glade full of enchanted lamps. The rosy glow of sunset catches the red in Grace and Abbie’s hair, smooths all the shadows of tiredness from their faces. They are both wholly enchanted by this display of opulence and modernity. Perhaps everything becomes more beautiful and magical when shared with friends.

They lean on the pier railing to watch the sun disappear beneath the water, spreading fire as it goes. Mandus holds Abbie in his arms, and Grace stands side by side with the Engineer. Looking at them, passersby would not see two former madmen, an orphan girl, and a servant. They would see a family.

Mandus thinks, breath hitching, of the two little boys who are not here. The world flickersand blackens at the edges as he struggles with himself.

Grace looks over at him with the electric lights sparkling in her eyes and says, “Thank you so much for today, sir.”

Mandus is at once so happy and so haunted he can hardly speak. “It was my pleasure,” he manages at last. “We must do it again.”

All too soon, the light fades, and it’s time to make their way to their hotel for the night. As they walk away from the beach, Abbie looks back at the Palace Pier, lit up like an ocean liner on a dark sea. Mandus knows that whatever his guilt, he has given her a gift she will never forget. She has given him a greater gift still.

It is not until he and the Engineer are lying in the dark in their hotel beds, with Grace and Abbie secure in their own room, that Mandus begins to doubt.

The Engineer, who finds it difficult to sleep away from the factory, wakes from a light doze to the sound of Mandus shivering quietly a few feet away. With a long-suffering sigh, he goes and sits on the edge of Mandus’s bed. He reaches out with an instinct he hardly recognizes, withdraws before he can put his hand on Mandus’s back.

“You might as well tell me,” the Engineer says softly. “I can sleep on the train home.”

Mandus does not turn over to look at him. “It’s only that I…I was so glad for Abbie today, but she reminds me of my children. Am I betraying them by loving her?”

“This again, Mandus? Do you love your sons any less than ever?”

“Of course not.”

“They are dead, and the girl is alive. The living need care.”

“It isn’t so easy –”

“Time passes. Wounds heal.”

“Not for me.”

“Yes, for you. It’s how we survive. It will happen with or without your approval; I daresay it already is. As for me, even the sting of my lost godhood is fading day by day.”

Mandus is silent for a time. Then he lets out a long breath as if exhaling all his guilt and says simply, “I’m sure you’re right. It’s been such a lovely time, and I oughtn’t spoil it. Did you have a good day?”

The Engineer considers this. To his surprise, he finds that despite the sun and the people and the smell of fish, his answer is quite clear.

“I suppose I did.” 

An unseen grin. “Then I’ve succeeded.”

888

Brighton was not a perfect day for Mandus, but it was a remarkably good one given how little time he has had to learn to live with last year’s horrors. It gives him reason to hope for healing. Indeed, after the holiday, the Mandus manor finally begins to feel like a home.

The Engineer is too cold to play the piano after the machines are shut down in the evenings, but Mandus is not, much to Abbie and Grace’s delight. Though he lacks the Engineer’s musical intuition, he can pick out simple pieces. Sometimes he holds Abbie on his lap and guides her, his strong fingers on her tiny ones. It thrills her to wield this machine and draw forth music, however simple, from its intricate arrangement of hammers and strings.

Sometimes Grace sits beside him. She plays even less than he does, but she can read a melody line well enough. In this way they put together simple pieces, she playing the right hand and he the left. Once, they play a lilting little thing that Lily taught Mandus when their courtship was new. Grace sings the descant, and it does not feel like a betrayal but rather a continuation.

When Mandus looks over his shoulder, Abbie is perched on the sofa, braiding the Engineer’s dark hair. Mandus opens his mouth in near-alarm, but the Engineer softens his gaze in a silent assurance that all is well. He has become, for the moment, a gentle old dog, and Abbie the puppy he is allowing to play with his tail.

Mandus turns back to Grace, whose face is flushed with contentment. He finds himself smiling in return. His heart is full of something bittersweet and strange. No, he does not deserve such peace, and he will never be entirely happy. But he will gladly embrace these moments as they come.

888

The crowning achievement of the summer is the new shutdown routine, born in Mandus’s office during a midday break and rehearsed to perfection in the following weeks. Naturally, the workers want to know if they can go even faster. The motivation to leave a bit early at the end of the day is a powerful one, though they also take great pride in their ability to work as a seamless unit.

Naturally, the routine does not stay a secret for long. The workers talk to their counterparts in other companies, and eventually word reaches the people of Seward’s, another London machine shop. They claim to have an even faster, more disciplined shutdown procedure. Seward’s specializes in marine steam engines, so there is no direct competition with the Mandus, Co; hence, Mandus has no qualms about inviting several of their senior workers to watch a demonstration.

The people of Seward’s acknowledge that their two shops employ different equipment, so they allow Mandus’s workers to manage these niceties before starting their watches.

Mandus’s operatives spring into a tightly controlled, thoroughly rehearsed flurry of activity. All across the shop floor, machines are stopped, bolts tightened, shafts greased, floors swept, hand tools collected and tucked away. A mechanical cadence rings out as furnace grates slam and the cooling boiler hisses. Supplies and tools are passed down the line and back to their places of storage like batons in runners’ hands. Samuel and Eliza coordinate the sequence, standing in the aisle between the two rows of equipment and giving signal blasts on their whistles. There is not a single pause. This is a mighty dance, like Nell’s, a dance of machinery.

From the gallery above, the Engineer shouts a bizarre sort of encouragement – “I’ll have your hearts if you fail me!” – but his eyes gleam with fierce joy. Here is a perfectly ordered system, humans and machines in harmony.

Beside him, Mandus’s gaze flicks between his pocket watch and the choreography below. He can see already that this is the smoothest the shutdown has ever run.

Then all at once, it’s over. The operatives pause for a moment of breathless silence.

Mandus compares his watch with the Engineer’s, for surely it cannot be correct. It is.

He calls out the time, and he knows at once from the slack-jawed looks on the faces of Seward’s people that his own workers have won. Wild cheers erupt.

Mandus had no part in the shutdown routine save to encourage it, but perhaps that is all he needs to do. Perhaps it is not his place to save these people and restore their humanity, but simply to provide a place where they can save themselves.

He and the Engineer clap each other’s shoulders. For once, the Engineer’s childlike grin of triumph does not falter at the touch. Today is one of the good days. Today, it is wonderful to be alive.

END ARC V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's very fluffy, but the Brighton holiday is one of my favorite parts of this story, and it actually does serve as a point of growth for both our protagonists (although for different reasons). 
> 
> Lest you think a rooftop roller skating rink sounds too modern for 1900, it was in fact real! If you follow [ this link](https://www.visitsealife.com/brighton/explore/history/) to the website for today's incarnation of the Brighton Aquarium, you can see period sketches of the interior, exterior, and roof terrace.
> 
> Finally, here are a few links to views of the Palace Pier roughly as it would have looked when this story takes place. The pavilion at the far end wasn't quite finished when the Mandus family visits, as far as I can tell, but I think the structure would have been there.  
> [ Image 1](http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/iron/1b.jpg)  
> [ Image 2 ](https://brightonjournal.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/pier_palace_brighton_1900_madeira_drive_sussex.jpg)  
> [ Image 3 ](https://piers.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/G2PalaceTP-1024x583.jpg)


	30. Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two more for you today: one quite short and interlude-y, the other longer and more serious.

ARC VI: BREAKING THE CYCLE

Autumn 1900

_Must we be crushed underfoot by metal feet not mine? Surely this machine can be better; it can serve us as we serve it; it can save us all._

Oswald Mandus, 8 March 1899

_Oh, my maker, oh, my Mandus. You have saved me, and in return I will save them all._

The Engineer, unused dialogue

* * *

29\. Life

The push ends, as all things must, and business returns to a more leisurely pace. The company will have some time now to catch its breath before the next inevitable rush. Despite the lull in the workload, however, life at Mandus, Co. is never dull. Indeed, the workers’ successes have brought them closer together, and as summer turns to autumn, they refine their craft with more pride and fellowship than ever. The atmosphere off the shop floor changes, too. Lunchtime conversations in Mandus’s office increasingly turn toward life, in all its joys and sorrows and mundanities and triumphs. The Engineer sometimes shares bits of Aztec mythology or, more likely, engages in good-natured verbal duels with Mandus until one of them throws something at the other from across the room.

The Engineer is slowly learning to trust his operatives. Some of them are experienced enough to run the control room on their own should the need arise, but others are less confident. The crisis of the pipes taught the Engineer that his bond with the machines might incapacitate him at any time, and any of his workers might need to take his place. He needs all of them to be capable of leadership. To this end, he sets up a rotation, giving each of his operating engineers a turn at the head of the control room.

One fine day in September, it is Lil Evans’s turn. She does not want for raw talent and determination, but she is the newest of the workers and the least experienced by far. She doubts her ability to take charge, as do some of her companions.

“She isn’t ready,” Eliza Morton mutters to the Engineer just before Lil starts her shift. “She’ll cause us all trouble.”

“Do you really think I would allow Evans – or anyone, for that matter – to endanger this operation?” the Engineer says in a low, firm tone that leaves no room for argument. He too is uncomfortable with allowing anyone other than himself to manage his machines, but they all need to learn.

Eliza squares her tiny shoulders, her dark red-brown eyes narrowing. She looks nothing like Mandus, and yet the resemblance between them is suddenly remarkable. “She shouldn’t be here. Don’t her sort dance at balls and shop for dresses and learn French?”

“I imagine Evans has done all of those things, yes.”

"Then why is she here?”

“Are you questioning my decision to hire her, Morton?”

Uncertainty flickers into Eliza’s eyes, but she stands her ground. “No, sir, but I know you want this to be a good place, and I don’t understand –”

“Evans is here,” says the Engineer with finality, “because she has the intuition I seek.” In a rare flash of sympathy, he understands that Eliza may feel threatened by Lil’s strange addition to the workforce. “As do you,” he adds. “As do you all.” The words and the underlying sentiment are strange to him, but they feel appropriate.

Eliza’s serious face softens into a smile. “Thank you, sir.”

“Off you go, then. Set Evans right should she need it.”

Lil’s first shift in charge of the control room yields mixed results. To begin with the good, she finds an extraordinary way to turn her well-to-do upbringing to her advantage. Like many members of the upper middle class, she has received some musical training, and she dances and sings with no small amount of skill. That musician’s ear serves her well. More than once, the Engineer sees her cock her head and sift through all the many sounds in the control room and its adjoining areas: the hissing boiler, the ticking gauges, the great rumbling, rattling steam engine. At times she hears a change in the steam flow or a shift in the engines’ cadence even before the gauges reflect it.

“More steam to Engine 2,” she says to the control room at large.

"Number 2 doesn’t need more steam,” says Nell Glynn with a glance at the pressure gauges. “The pressure is fine.”

Lil’s gaze falters beneath the dark fringe of her bangs. “Wait a moment,” she says, and the Engineer can tell from the slight quiver in her voice that she is praying she is right.

Sure enough, the needle on the corresponding pressure gauge begins to dip.

One of the stokers, peering in from the boiler room next door, mutters, “I’ll be damned,” before going to execute Lil’s direction.

Lil dances, too – not in any obvious way, but the Engineer can tell by her steady, regular movements that she is using the mechanical rhythms around her as a guide, taking them into her body, letting the thud of the machinery become her heartbeat. Sometimes she lays her hands on the control panels and speaks soft words as if the machines are her partners in a great waltz.

“Stay with me,” she asks them. “Please hear me.”

Her greatest concern seems to be that the machines – not her fellow workers – will not heed her directions. The Engineer thinks she is quite right, too: he knows that machines have a sort of will, and it is infinitely stronger than a human’s. Still, Lil ought to give more consideration to the human components of the operation. She is competent and intuitive, but her inexperience and genteel upbringing make her reluctant to raise her voice. This is an unfortunate problem: the machine shop is a noisy, fast-moving place where decisiveness is key. As she is now, Lil could not guide the control room through a crisis if left to her own devices.

Nevertheless, the Engineer believes she will gain confidence with time. She is still very new to the world of the factory, and her performance, frustrating though it was, might have been much worse. 

Nell Glynn shares this opinion. “I told you it was like a dance, didn’t I?” she says proudly at the end of the day, when Lil has given her last set of orders and sunk onto a stool with relief. “Remember? On your first day, before you knew how to read the gauges fast enough.”

"You did,” Lil says gratefully, accepting the younger girl’s offer of a shoulder to lean on. “I’m not certain I would have realized that without you, but now I can’t imagine thinking of it any other way.”

“You need to be stronger,” Eliza says as she heads to the shop floor for a final inspection. “You’re too quiet. This is a factory, not a garden party. The workers need confidence and the machines need strength. That’s all machines understand.”

"I’ll improve,” says Lil, her gaze never leaving Eliza’s.

“You’d best do.” Eliza pauses in the control room doorway, and her eyes soften a little. “You have a good ear, though; I’ll give you that. It might be useful someday.”

When Eliza is gone, Nell gives Lil’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “You’ll get better. I used to cry all the time, but…” she glances at the Engineer with defiant pride, “…I don’t do that so much anymore.”

The Engineer rises from his seat at the back of the control room with a satisfied nod. “Morton is right to say you need to speak up, Evans…but I was right to bring you here. You hear it, don’t you?”

Lil nods. “The machine song? I believe so.”

“That is a requirement of mine, you know,” the Engineer goes on. “Everyone who works in this control room must hear the machine song, as you put it.”

Nell looks up at her employer. “Then I hear it, too?”

“Perhaps you could, Nell Glynn, if you could control your tears.”

He can feel Mandus at the borders of his mind, listening to these thoughts and chuckling gently. _Your words are losing their sting, my old friend._

To this, the Engineer replies with inarticulate indignation. _You have made me weak._

As for Lil, her companions take notice of her musical abilities after her first shift as control room manager. She starts a company choir to prepare carols for Christmas, though the members cause their share of mischief in the meantime. They soon discover that they can sing into the pipes in one part of the complex and be heard in all manner of other places. In the days that follow, Mandus is frequently jolted from his paperwork by disembodied voices. At first he thinks he may be hearing ghosts. Then he recognizes Nell’s low, clear Welsh accent at the forefront, and Lil’s well-trained soprano, and Grace’s warm mezzo soaring in between. He hears Samuel Baird and Silas Milsom too, anchors at the bottom of each chord. Despite the bright warmth of the tune, the words presage Allhallowtide: _Their labors follow after them, thus doth the Spirit say. Their works be honored still on this solemn festal day._

 _May it be so_ , he thinks, _their labors and mine._

888

The nights bring almost as many eccentricities as the days. To begin with, Mandus and the Engineer both have odd sleeping habits. Though they scold each other for it, the truth is that they both tend to collapse and doze on the nearest remotely comfortable surface. These surfaces include, but are not limited to, the downstairs parlor rug, window seats, desk chairs, sofas and chaises, and (in the Engineer’s case) beneath control panels.

Once, Mandus finds the Engineer asleep on a parlor chaise, hands sculpting the air above him in ethereal patterns. There is something oddly sad and beautiful about this. Mandus suspects that in dreams, the Engineer finds the godhood he cannot have and cannot quite release. On waking, the Engineer is left with damp cheeks and a profound sense of loss.

Not all their nightly dealings are sad, however. One night, a particularly violent thunderstorm sends Abbie hurtling from her bed, down the stairs, and into Mandus’s arms. He wraps her in a blanket and rocks her gently until her shaking slows down.

“Why is it so loud?” she mumbles into his shoulder.

Abbie is clever and old enough to require a better explanation than, “It’s only God’s fireworks.” That may well be true in a sense, but Abbie can manage a bit of science as well. Mandus has always found that frightening things scare him less when he has a name and a description for them.

“Well,” he begins, shifting Abbie into his lap, “the lightning heats the air around it, and then the air cools again very quickly. You’ve heard the steam pipes rumble as they cool, yes? This is the same, only much faster and on a much greater scale. That rapid heating and cooling is what makes the thunder.”

Abbie tilts her head, revealing one wide brown eye. “It’s just a sound.”

“Just a sound,” Mandus promises. “No monsters, no dragons.”

“The dragons are downstairs.”

Mandus does not know exactly what this means, though he thinks Abbie must be referring to the steam engines. “Yes, safe downstairs.”

With her fears reduced to simple physics, Abbie settles down to go back to sleep. “We tame the dragons.”

“Yes, dear.”

With Abbie resting against him, Mandus feels normal for a moment.

All in all, it’s not such a bad life.


	31. An Application of Pressure

30\. An Application of Pressure

Almost before they know it, it is nearing the end of September, and with it Edwin and Enoch’s birthday and the anniversary of Lily’s death. Mandus manages to keep the worst of the sorrow at bay until the preceding night. Worn down as he is by the day’s work, the black shadow at his heels springs eagerly upon him and swallows him whole. By the next morning, he is numb to every feeling but grief, staring at the wall without seeing a thing and determined not to think. He fetches a bottle of spirits from the cellar and locks himself in his bedroom. He is not prone to excessive drinking, but today he will make an exception.

Thankfully, the knots in the Engineer’s stomach alert him to Mandus’s distress. He picks the lock and lets himself into Mandus’s bedroom with every intention of hauling the man to his feet and dragging him down to the kitchen to have some breakfast. He knows perfectly well what day this is, and he is determined not to let Mandus spend it alone.

He stops on the threshold, however. Mandus is sitting against his headboard, gray-faced, still dressed in the rumpled shirtsleeves and trousers he slept in. A bottle rests loosely in one hand as though he cannot summon the strength to open it. He hardly takes notice of the Engineer.

Disturbed though he is to find Mandus in such a state, the Engineer schools his face into neutrality. Then he crosses the room and sits down beside Mandus, grasping the bottle with one hand.

Mandus revives a bit, if only to stop the Engineer from pulling the bottle away. It occurs to the Engineer then that he may be in over his head. He has talked Mandus out of his doubts before, but this is different; this is soul-shattering grief, and the Engineer has never known how to manage that. He suspects his usual unsentimental approach will not suffice this time. Still, it’s all he knows. He may as well start there.

He takes firmer hold of the bottle. “Now, you are not going to sit here alone and get drunk. I know you: you’ll brood even more than usual.”

Mandus blinks dully at him. “I want to be drunk.”

"I know,” says the Engineer carefully, endeavoring to be patient, “but you shouldn’t do it. It won’t help a thing.”

"I don’t want it to help, I want to forget.”

"You might have gotten away with that when we two were alone, but there are people who need you now.”

Mandus’s eyes flash. “Well, they can’t need me today. If you have any mercy, you’ll give me one day when I needn’t be strong. One day to break.”

That is precisely what the Engineer fears. Mandus has not looked so weary since the day he saw the tally of child fatalities in the engine room and finally let himself crumble.

The Engineer allows his voice to soften. “You may break if you promise you will not break irreparably.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Mandus whispers. “Isn’t it enough that these artificial eyes of mine cannot weep? Can’t I have one day…just one day…”

Suddenly he goes limp, folding in on himself as if some great spring has wound down. He slumps over, and his head lands on the Engineer’s shoulder.

The Engineer’s whole body stiffens at the contact. He makes several choked, uncertain noises. He does not want this, does not want this human leaning on him and clinging to his shirt like a drowning man to driftwood. He does not know what to do. And a small part of him hates to see his maker like this, shaking and exhausted and utterly vulnerable. It’s wrong. Mandus should not be reduced to this.

His hands twitch towards Mandus’s shoulders, obeying a deep, powerful instinct. Surely he does not want to comfort Mandus! What would it mean if he did? What would it mean if he put his arms around Mandus the way Mandus put his arms around the Engineer that long-ago day in the parlor, when the Engineer was sick and broken? It would mean that he has forgiven Mandus, or at least made peace with him and accepted him as a father. If he is honest with himself, he knows that he has been changing as steadily as the seasons. But he cannot accept it, not yet; it’s too soon. He cannot bear to look into himself and find his own soul unrecognizable.

But even so, he can hardly sit here and let Mandus grieve.

Why not?

It doesn’t matter.

But it does! Why does the Engineer want to comfort his maker? Why does it burn him to see Mandus like this? Because Mandus is his father and – no, never mind. What can he do? What can he say? 

The Engineer lets his hands fall back into his lap, but he does not push Mandus away. Mandus’s eyes have closed, and though he is still shaking, he seems to be drawing a strange sort of comfort from the Engineer’s closeness. However they may feel about each other, they cannot deny that they are two halves of the same soul, and they make each other whole. There is an instinctive solace in that.

If it helps Mandus to rest on the Engineer’s shoulder, to lean on someone for once in his life, then so be it. But it doesn’t seem like enough. Is there anything the Engineer can say? If he cannot put his arms around Mandus, as any normal human being would do in this moment, can he offer some comforting words instead?

His mind races as he listens to Mandus’s shuddery breathing. Did anything happen on Mandus’s most recent trip to Mexico that might soothe him now? No, Mandus made peace with his children there, but that doesn’t seem to be helping him just now. What, then? The Engineer can hardly bring Lily, Edwin, and Enoch back to lifes. Can he give Mandus a sign that they…

That’s it.

The Engineer brushes his maker’s shoulder with his fingertips. “Mandus, can you hear me?”

A pause in Mandus’s shaky breathing, then a tiny nod.

“Good. I never told you this before, but now seems to be an appropriate time. When you reached the chamber of the heart on New Year’s Eve, did you happen to hear Lily’s voice humming that German aria she liked? _Dieses Herz_?”

Mandus goes rigid. That is confirmation enough for the Engineer.

“Well, that was no hallucination. Lily was there. I could see her, being a disembodied soul myself. She had been with you all night, but I only realized it when I saw her standing behind you with a guiding lamp in one hand and a sword in the other. I knew then why nothing had harmed you all night. She was watching over you, ensuring that you set your wrongs right.”

Now Mandus looks up at the Engineer with pleading dark eyes. There is a terrible hope in those eyes, desperate and fragile but consuming. “Would you lie to me?” he rasps.

“Not about this.” The Engineer has given such an answer before, and always sincerely.

“Did she…did she look well?”

"Oh, very well. Powerful, it seemed to me. Sanctified.”

“Then she forgives me?” This is uttered in such a soft, hesitant voice that the Engineer has to strain to hear it.

He nods. “I would say so.”

At this, Mandus lets his head fall back onto the Engineer’s shoulder. The wave of relief that sweeps through his maker then is so powerful that the Engineer feels it, like the cold sweat that comes in the wake of a nightmare, but magnified a hundredfold. The Engineer’s breath catches.

“There we are,” he says shakily. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

Mandus does not answer. In fact, he seems to be in something of a daze. The Engineer begins to wonder if he has made a mistake. How is he going to get downstairs for work now? He cannot move Mandus without disturbing him – and that’s a strange thought. Not so long ago, he wouldn’t have cared whether he woke Mandus or not. Little though he likes the idea, he suspects he may need to stay here today while Mandus rests and heals. That means leaving his control room unsupervised, but…somehow, today, Mandus seems more important.

Grace comes to check on them before too long. “I told Samuel Baird to let the others know Mr. Mandus wasn’t feeling well and neither of you might be in today,” she says quietly from the bedroom door. “I shouldn’t have presumed, but I know you wouldn’t miss work if you had a choice.”

"That was good of you, Teague,” the Engineer tells her. “You might as well know that Mr. Mandus had twin sons once, born in the same hour their mother died. He took them with him on an expedition to Mexico last year, and all three of them caught malaria. The boys were not strong enough to survive. This would have been their tenth birthday, and the anniversary of their mother’s death.”

Not all of this is true, of course, but it’s enough. Comprehension dawns on Grace’s face. The Engineer suspects she has realized why Mandus loves Abbie so fiercely.

She shakes her head. “I’m so sorry, sir,” she murmurs. “Such an awful thing… You’re good to stay with him today. He’ll need you close to him.” As she turns to go, she asks, “May I have the names of your family, sir? I’d like to pray for them.”

“Mr. Mandus would appreciate that, I think. The boys were Edwin and Enoch. Their mother was Lilibeth, though everyone called her Lily.”

“Thank you, sir. I’m so glad he hasn’t lost everyone he loves. He still has you.”

The Engineer is less than certain of this, but still he does not try to shift Mandus off of him. Nor does he put his arms around the man. He simply allows Mandus to sleep on his shoulder and get the rest he so desperately needs, here where he is safe. Although the Engineer grieves for Edwin and Enoch in his own way, he still believes that Mandus was right to deliver them from their fate. This conviction shields his heart.

In this way – perhaps only in this way – he can be strong for Mandus.

888

In the end, Mandus recovers enough to be coaxed into putting on fresh clothes and going down to the factory offices for a while. He doesn’t try to do anything in particular, just sits there quietly and says a few words to the clerks going in and out. Somehow, the general reason for Mandus’s absence has made its way to the workers. Most of them seem to realize that he does not want to talk about it, for they do no more than press his hand or shoulder before moving on. Their presence is enough. These people can never know precisely what Mandus is enduring, but they can easily understand loss.

As it happens, it’s for the best that the Engineer refused to let Mandus get drunk in solitude. The next day brings a trial such as the company has never known.

It begins with a surprise inspection. Though they run a clean and safe operation, it sets them all on edge. Some factory inspectors are fair, some are lax, some just have it in for the owners, and it’s always a gamble as to who turns up. Thankfully, this one is earnest and causes no uproar. In fact, the inspection turns out to be the least of the day’s crises.

The problem with the boiler does not make itself known until the evening, long after the inspector has gone. No one could have foreseen it, not even the Engineer. They take near-perfect care of the machines. Sometimes these things just happen.

The Engineer is the first to know, of course. It’s getting on toward evening when he starts to feel a tightness in his chest. He is a bit concerned, but he does not think much of it until he and his mechanics are about to start the shutdown procedures. Just then, the tightness suddenly explodes into pain. It happens so fast that it takes his breath away. He cannot so much as scream, can only bend over a control panel, face twisting, and try to inhale.

“What is it, sir?” Eliza asks. He feels her take his arm through a red haze of pain.

“The…the boiler…” he gasps as the spasm fades.

At the same moment, Lil bursts in from the boiler room. At this critical moment, she corrects the flaws of her first frustrating performance as control room manner. Gone is the mild-mannered, hesitant young woman praying her directions are correct. Now finds her voice, strong and insistent: “The boiler sounds wrong, sir! Something must have stuck!”

Eliza goes rigid. Distracted though he is, the Engineer can almost hear her thoughts: _I’ve seen this before, it’s happening again_. He remembers Eliza telling him, after Mandus went into the pipes, that a boiler explosion killed several people at her last place of employment. Her face is nearly as white as his own.

Still, when she speaks, her voice is quite steady. “I know you’ve a good ear, being a singer and all,” she says to Lil, “but did Small or any of the others hear it too? They would know better than you.”

Lil nods breathlessly. “Small heard it too. The pressure is all right just now, but if the release valve is stuck… Even if we bank the fires, the leftover heat could still boil enough new steam to rupture the –”

"Then go, go!” Eliza shouts just as the Engineer doubles over again with a strangled cry. “One of you find the other Mr. Mandus, he’ll be able to…”

Whatever else Eliza says is lost as she and her colleagues rush from the control room. Left behind, Nell Glynn grasps the handle of the engine order telegraph and pulls it decisively to “STOP.” That should let the stokers know to douse the fires right away, if they haven’t done it already. She has forgotten entirely that the engine order telegraph defeated her in her first week of work. She knows only that this seems like precisely the sort of emergency to require it.

Suddenly bereft, she looks frantically between the doorway and the Engineer, who is slowly sinking to his knees.

The Engineer’s mind is a blur. He can’t sense enough to know exactly what is happening. Have his workers gone to their deaths? Why is he thinking _that_ when he has never been overly concerned for them before? Where is Mandus, where –

“He’ll have gone to help the others, sir,” says Nell Glynn from behind him. “I don’t think I should leave you…”

Did he say that bit about Mandus aloud? Dimly, the Engineer feels Nell put her small arms around him and ease his head onto her shoulder.

He blinks up at her. “No,” he groans, “no, not you…”

“Sir, what’s wrong?” Nell asks. “Do you need a doctor?”

He needs a doctor as little as he needs this would-be saboteur, this girl who cries at the slightest provocation, to hold him while he screams. But although her wide brown eyes are frightened, she isn’t crying now. How strange, when the Engineer can feel tears of fear and pain slipping down his own cheeks.

“It’s the boiler, I can feel it,” he croaks, because his panicked child’s mind can think of no better explanation.

Nell seems to take this for delirious rambling at first, but then comprehension dawns on her face. Does she suspect his bond with the machines? Is she thinking of his mysterious illness just before the pipes were cleaned, or his fainting spell when the steam pressure dropped at the end of the first day of work? He certainly feels faint now, though that may be because of the pain.

“Mandus…” he hears himself say in a small voice that scarcely sounds like his own. He feels strangely disconnected from himself, his world reduced to the sharp shard of hurt in his chest.

"Mr. Mandus can’t be here just now,” Nell says again. There is an authority in her voice that has never been there before, and a fire of fear and determination in her eyes. “You’ve only got me, but I’ve been looking after myself all my life and I’m still here. I can look after you.”

The Engineer does not find this heartening, but what choice does he have? The moment he tries to twist free of Nell’s grip, the pain flares again and throws him back down. Despite himself, he clutches Nell’s hand.

“That’s it, sir,” says Nell. “When it hurts, squeeze my hand. You can break my fingers if you like.”

“You can’t work if I break your fingers, Nell Glynn,” the Engineer pants. He breaks off as the stabbing in his chest returns, and he clutches Nell’s hand tighter. The girl does not wince. The Engineer is vaguely aware of the unaccustomed fierceness in her eyes.

She smooths his hair back from his face. “Mr. Mandus and the others will put it right, sir,” she says. “I’ll…I’ll keep you calm until then.”

The Engineer laughs hoarsely. “You can hardly keep yourself calm.”

Nell does not take this bait. She just settles her arms more comfortably around the Engineer and begins to sing. She has a lovely voice for one so young, raw and untrained but clear as a bell. The first song is a lullaby of all the birds and trees and streams and stars that watch over sleepers with love. The rest of Nell’s repertoire is Welsh. Although the Engineer does not understand the words, he can tell they are ancient and strong, full of courage as deep as the sea. Nell’s voice lays a sort of spell on him. He still feels the spasms in his chest, but if he grits his teeth and concentrates on Nell, he can push them down without screaming.

Between songs, Nell rocks him gently and murmurs soothing things. “Trust them to put it right, sir. You taught them everything they know.”

Neither of them can say how much time passes, but it feels like forever. They are suspended in an isolated world, Nell cradling him close and singing her songs of quiet courage, the Engineer biting his lip and squeezing Nell’s hand to keep from crying out. The Engineer thinks the pain may be fading, but he can’t be sure he isn’t simply going numb. Whatever the case, he eventually finds himself too exhausted to push down the spasms. All his strength is gone, leaving him limp and shuddering in Nell’s arms.

“Nell Glynn…I can’t…I can’t fight anymore…”

“Then don’t, sir.” Nell’s voice is as calm and cool as it has been all along. “Let _me_ fight. Hold tight and give the hurt to me.”

The Engineer tries to clasp her hand, but there is no more strength in his fingers. His eyes flutter shut, his breathing slow and ragged. Soon after that, he loses consciousness entirely. Nell, his silent guardian, holds him as he sleeps.

When at last Mandus comes for them, exhausted but relieved, he finds a scene that bears a striking resemblance to the _Pietà_. Nell sits on the floor, looking quite as young and angelic as the sculpted Virgin Mary. She cradles the Engineer in her lap like the crucified Christ.

Mandus kneels beside them. He allows himself to run his hand once over the Engineer’s brow. “Is he asleep?” he whispers to Nell.

Nell nods. “I think so, sir. He’s been fighting hard.”

“He always does.” Mandus lets out the breath he has been holding for too long now. “The boiler’s automatic pressure release valve stuck. We think it must have been mineral buildup, enough to cause trouble but not enough for us to see. It was a near thing, but it’s all right now. Lil Evans and Fletcher Small noticed in time; thank goodness for their sharp ears."

He holds out his arms for the Engineer, but Nell does not move. Mandus is all too familiar with the fierce protectiveness in her eyes.

“He’ll be all right now,” Mandus tells her gently. “You’ve done so well, my dear girl, so much more than could be expected of you. You should never have been left alone with him. I’m very grateful to you, very grateful indeed, but you can leave him to me.”

Reluctantly, Nell releases her charge and allows Mandus to scoop the Engineer into his arms. The Engineer stirs a little, just enough to recognize his maker and smile.

"Hello, little one,” Mandus murmurs. “I’m sorry I left you.” Then, to Nell: “Some of the others are going to sleep at the house tonight. You may not know it, but it’s late. Have something to eat and get some good rest before work tomorrow. It’s the least I can do to thank you.”

Nell just nods. Her firm resolve is draining fast now that she has been relieved of her burden, and tiredness is taking its place.

Mandus calls down Samuel Baird the gentle giant, who addresses the Engineer with the utmost tenderness: “It’s Sam, sir. Can you put your arms around my neck?” The Engineer hardly seems to notice as Samuel lifts him up and carries him back to the house. Mandus follows behind, escorting a stumbling Nell Glynn.

“Do you know how extraordinary it is that he let you hold him?” Mandus asks her on the way. “He hates to be touched.”

“I don’t think he had much choice, sir.”

"Well, if he’s ever unfair to you again, you bring up what you did for him today. You’ve been very brave, and he ought to give you credit.”

Up at the house, Grace has once again proved herself a saint. She’s put together all manner of food from the larder for the workers who saved the boiler, none of it hot but all of it nourishing. No one will go to sleep hungry tonight.

Mandus offers Nell the chance to wash up a bit, but she hardly manages to finish her plate of food before curling up in an armchair and falling asleep. The rest of the mechanics stay awake a while longer, marveling at Mandus’s house. They have never seen such large rooms or rich furnishings before, much less bathrooms with running water. Much to Mandus’s chagrin, they don’t seem to mind sleeping on blankets on the floor, though he offers better arrangements.

“Your rugs are softer than my bed, sir,” Eliza remarks dryly. Mandus knows she does not say this to shame him for his material wealth, but that is the effect. For the thousandth time, Mandus wishes he could wave his hand and erase poverty from the world.

He walks through the house after everyone is asleep, stepping carefully between blanketed forms and listening to soft, deep breathing. His father would say he has turned the proud house into a hostel for vagrants. The Engineer would say that one of the sleepers is bound to steal something. Thankfully, neither of them can speak. The former Mr. Mandus is years dead. While the Engineer is mercifully not, he _is_ fast asleep in his own room, quite worn out by the day’s trials. No, the only one left to speak is Mandus, and he says that this is all perfectly right.

He feels so alive – tired, but alive. It’s hard to believe that just yesterday he planned to drink himself into a stupor and grieve for his lost family. Just now, his grief can barely touch him.

888

The Engineer is well enough by the next morning that he wants to work, and Mandus indulges him. He offers the Engineer his hands and lets him try to stand. The Engineer has only risen a few inches from the edge of his bed before he lets out a soft, hissing breath of pain. Mandus forces him back under the covers. He looks very vulnerable, lying there even paler than usual with his black hair spread over the pillows.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” the Engineer says helplessly. “I don’t sense anything in the machinery…”

"You had quite an ordeal yesterday. You need rest.” Mandus squeezes his counterpart’s hand reassuringly. “Shall I stay, little one? There isn’t much to be done today.”

The Engineer shakes his head, though in his heart he very much wants the company. “How you do fuss, Mandus. Go and be with your people.” 

_You are my people_ , Mandus wants to say, but he knows such talk only flusters the Engineer. Besides, that sentiment is understood by now; it lives in the small gestures and pointed silences they exchange every day. It need not be said.

“Are you sure?” Mandus asks once more. “You stayed with me the other day when I –”

“You were far worse off than I, I should think,” says the Engineer with a wave of his hand. “You might send up Nell Glynn, though. I must thank her properly.” The words feel strange on his tongue. The Engineer has never expressed gratitude aloud. He doubts he has even uttered the phrase “thank you” as anything more than a casual courtesy.

Mandus leaves reluctantly, promising to look in during the midday break. The Engineer is not alone for long, however. Grace keeps him regular company, bringing him food and things to read and changing his phonograph cylinders when they finish playing. She knows that he had some sort of fit yesterday and needs rest, and of course she is concerned.

“You are worse than my brother, Teague,” the Engineer tells her, though his voice lacks any real hardness. “I’m not dying. You won’t get rid of me so easily.”

“I should hope not, sir!” says Grace as she takes his empty teacup and saucer from the night-table. “We would all be so brokenhearted to lose you, Mr. Mandus especially.”

The Engineer knows, of course, that Mandus bears him paternal affection, but he has convinced himself that this is no more than a desperate and indiscriminate need for children. Grace, however, is implying that Mandus has come to care for the Engineer as family in truth, not just as a substitute for Edwin and Enoch. He cannot say why, but the thought leaves him feeling terribly confused.

“Would he indeed?” he asks Grace softly.

“Oh yes, sir. He’s always easier in his heart when he’s with you – stronger somehow. He cares for you a great deal.”

The Engineer does not know why this should come as such a revelation, nor why it should fill him with a deep, nameless fear. Thankfully, he does not have to think too much about it just now. He hears bells ring faintly deep below, signaling the start of the midday break, and not long after that, Nell Glynn appears in the doorway. The Engineer has had a chance to make himself presentable by then, for which he is grateful. If he must sit in bed like an invalid, he need not look like one as well.

Grace gives Nell a gentle push forward. Nell looks as apprehensive as always, tiny body almost lost in her work clothes. She is wringing her hands, though she does not seem to realize it.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” she asks.

The Engineer lays his book aside. “Yes. It’s a matter of some importance.”

Nell takes a few tentative steps nearer the bedside.

“You aren’t in any trouble,” the Engineer says in what he hopes is a gentle tone. “Quite the opposite, in fact. I called you here to thank you for looking after me yesterday.”

Nell tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “It was nothing, sir. I didn’t think you ought to be alone.”

“It was more than nothing. You’ve now seen me at my lowest, Nell Glynn, so I might as well tell you that I’m not certain I could have borne it alone. That must have been obvious to you.”

Nell blinks in astonishment, and the Engineer prays he does not flush blue with shame. He has never made an admission of this sort, not even to Mandus – at least, not explicitly. He is nearly as shocked as Nell to hear the words issuing from his own lips.

Then Nell says something unexpected: “I was afraid, too. I didn’t know what to do for you or if I could help you at all. I’ve never seen you like that before, sir. You always seem so strong.”

“Then we’ve both learned something about each other: I am as destructible as you, and you… Well, there is more to you than it seems.”

A faint smile quirks Nell’s lips.

“I know I’ve been harsh with you,” the Engineer goes on (he cannot stop now while he has the nerve), “but it was only because I sensed promise. Until yesterday, I thought I’d sensed wrongly. Perhaps there is hope for you yet.”

Nell’s grin broadens. _That sounds more like the gaffer I know_ , say her eyes. For a moment, she looks as if she wants to embrace him. The Engineer’s whole body stiffens with discomfort at the thought, as always, but Nell does not move.

“I’m glad you’re better, sir,” she murmurs instead, then dashes off without another word. The Engineer can only shake his head.

He has another visitor soon afterward – Mandus this time, bringing with him the air of purpose that means he is having a good day.

“Well, it seems you haven’t made Nell cry this time,” he says lightly as he crosses to the bedside and sits down. “How are you faring, little one?”

"Teague has been keeping me from boredom,” says the Engineer, eliciting an affectionate roll of the eyes from Mandus. “She said…”

The Engineer stops himself before he can say, _She said you would grieve for me if I died_. Instead he pretends to be distracted by a sharp flare of pain.

Mandus catches the hand the Engineer presses to his side. “Are you worse again?”

The Engineer shakes his head dismissively. “Teague said I ought to stay in bed lest I do myself a harm, and I fear she was right. I’m not quite recovered yet.”

“Another night of sleep and you’ll be just fine, I’m sure,” Mandus tells him, smoothing the blankets down.

The Engineer looks into Mandus’s eyes, and he is startled and a bit distressed to find more than paternal instinct there. There is also a deep, abiding concern and something that might indeed be fear. If that is so, did the boiler incident rouse in Mandus the same terrible fear of loss, the same hollowing dread the Engineer felt when Mandus came tumbling dazed and burned out of the pipes? What does that mean for them? Surely it means that they are no longer partners in a truce or even allies. They are family, as Mandus has long wished.

Something of this confusion must show in the Engineer’s face, for Mandus’s grip on his hand tightens. “Are you sure you aren’t hurting again?”

The Engineer swallows down the sense of vertigo and tries to put on a smile. “Don’t fuss, Mandus. Actually, I’ve been wondering about _you_ , what with your sons’ birthday and then the inspection and the boiler so soon after. I’ll be needing to look after you next if you don’t rest. You know how I resent that.”

There is no sting whatsoever in these words, and they both know it. The days when the Engineer could veil his actions in self-preservation are long past, but he has yet to think of a convincing new excuse.

“I’m fine, really,” Mandus promises. “I’ve not felt so alive since the day we gave those people from Seward’s a trouncing. Struggle can do extraordinary things.”

“Yes, extraordinary,” says the Engineer, though he himself has only ever found struggle to be exhausting and miserable.

He sends Mandus away as soon as he can so that he does not have to think about the things he has seen and heard today.

But he _does_ think about them. He thinks about them a great deal. That night, in fact, he dreams that it is New Year’s Eve. In this dream, the shock wave from the revived reactor has thrown Mandus across the control room and snapped his neck. The Engineer stands above his maker’s lifeless body, knowing the last obstacle to his ascension has now been removed. He is on the brink of godhood. This is not the softened, docile Engineer of 1900, but the Engineer of 1899: cold and ruthless and fully capable of breaking the world.

Even so, he can summon no satisfaction as he looks at Mandus’s broken form. Instead, he kneels down and mourns. His silent tears leave dark spots on Mandus’s coat.


	32. All Hallows

31\. All Hallows

The drama of the boiler brings changes. Eliza and Lil get along much better afterwards, for one thing. Eliza seems to accept that Lil is no mere ornament, for it was indeed Lil’s trained musical ear that first alerted the mechanics to the stuck valve. She still calls Lil “m’lady,” but with affection rather than rancor. Eliza seems to relax a bit, too. She has faced the very danger she was unable to prevent at her last place of employment, and she and her colleagues have triumphed. Though that cannot bring back the dead, Eliza feels herself redeemed.

It is also in the wake of this near disaster that the Engineer begins to compose a secret and personal letter. At least, he thinks of it as a letter. He writes it as if to Mandus, though he does not intend for anyone to see it, least of all his maker. It is simply an attempt to set his confused thoughts down on paper: his motivations for New Year’s Eve and before, his loss of identity, his search for a new life, his inability to work out just how he feels about Mandus. It is a cathartic exercise, sitting there at his writing desk in the evenings and pouring his struggles onto the page. More than once, he goes to bed with a bittersweet ache in his heart.

He doesn’t know when exactly his mind changes – gradually, most likely – but somewhere along the way, he begins to entertain the idea of letting Mandus read the letter. Until he decides for certain, he keeps the closely-written pages under lock and key in his desk.

In the meantime, autumn wears on. The tall, gnarled tree beside the house turns yellow and red and then sheds its leaves to cover the paving stones. The mornings grow darker and chillier, though not unpleasantly so just yet. It’s the crisp, smoky sort of chill that makes one want to send one’s breath into the sky like dragon-steam and dispel all vestiges of slumber. The workers begin to turn up for their shifts in scarves and coats.

Abbie is delighted with autumn. She has seen the changing of the seasons before, of course, but never with the guarantee of a warm and comfortable home in which to spend the winter. She loves the sweet, woody smell and the dry crackling of the fallen leaves. Sometimes she chases the skittering leaves around the courtyard as the wind sweeps them into little whirls. Mandus sees her from his bedroom window. It never fails to make him smile.

For his part, the Engineer tries not to think on how the autumn foreshadows the winter and the turning of the years. With the leaves falling, he is more aware now than ever that every day brings him closer to another New Year’s Eve, closer to the horrors of this new century. He starts to have nightmares again.

As before, this only brings him closer to Mandus. One night, he wakes from visions so horrible that he remembers only that they _were_ horrible, so horrible that they make him physically ill. His awareness comes and goes as he stumbles into the adjoining bathroom. The next thing he knows, he is kneeling over the toilet bowl, shuddering with full-bodied dry heaves. It’s as if he has drunk the pig’s blood all over again.

He is distantly aware of Mandus tucking loose strands of the Engineer’s hair aside in case he should bring up more than bile from his stomach. Then he turns around and his father isn’t there, never was, no more than the echo of a wish.

Disoriented and heartsick, the Engineer makes his way back to the bedroom and collapses without bothering to crawl beneath the covers. He is shaking, though he is too tired to muster much in the way of tears.

He feels Mandus’s hands on his shoulders again, but this time they are real. Mandus does not try to hold his spirit-child; that is not the way the Engineer takes comfort except at the uttermost end of need. He just wraps the blankets around the Engineer’s quivering body and holds his shoulders until the Engineer falls asleep again. Neither of them says a word. The Engineer is quite beyond words, and Mandus knows that nothing he can say will be of greater comfort than his presence.

The next morning at breakfast, the Engineer lays his fingers on Mandus’s shoulder in passing, just long enough to convey the gratitude he cannot express aloud.

Mandus does not look up from his plate, but the Engineer hears his thought as clear as day:

_I’m here for you._

888

Hard work has never dampened the spirits of Mandus’s operatives. As Halloween draws ever closer, a spate of mischief breaks out – not near the machines, of course, but the offices and corridors are fair game. Most of the pranks are good-natured and simple: jumping out around corners, sneaking up from behind, making things disappear and reappear in odd places. Sometimes the workers use the pipes to project their disembodied voices through all parts of the complex. This causes no small number of startled jolts.

The Engineer concocts a more calculated prank of his own. For some time now, his desk has played host to the colorful Mexican pig mask which Mandus claims followed him around the complex on New Year’s Eve. Now he takes it out and recruits several of the workers to help him in his ploy.

They spend the next week or so setting out the pig mask just before Mandus comes into a room and whisking it away with cleverly concealed fishing rods as soon as he notices it. It’s great fun at first, and very affectionate. None of the mischief-makers wish Mandus any harm, not even the Engineer. For him, this is merely a chance for some good-humored payback. Once, he even makes his way into one of the secret passages behind the manor walls. There he stands on a pile of crates to reach a vent, hooks the mask to his fishing rod, and dangles it through onto the parlor mantelpiece. It’s worth nearly toppling over and breaking his neck.

It’s only when he catches sight of the confused, helpless look on Mandus’s face one day that he decides things have gone far enough. The night after the pig mask’s latest appearance, he sits Mandus down with a cup of tea.

“You knew this was only a game, didn’t you?” the Engineer asks. “You’re clever enough to realize that.”

Mandus gives a soft, humorless laugh. “I knew – at least, I thought so, hoped so, prayed so – but in the back of my mind, I wondered…” He takes a sip of tea, swallows hard. “I’ve hallucinated before, you know. Why not this time?”

“You weren’t well then.” The Engineer tries to make his voice gentle and soft like Mandus’s, but this does not come easily. “Things are very different now.”

“But they might not always be so! How do you know something or other won’t…send me over the edge again?”

The genuine fear in Mandus’s eyes is such that the Engineer feels true pangs of regret for his childish game. He does not try to pull away as Mandus grips his hand.

“It won’t,” says the Engineer firmly. “If you’ve gotten this far, I’d say the worst is over.”

Mandus shakes his head. “You don’t know. I don’t know; none of us know. I was perfectly sane all my life, but that didn’t stop me from…from…”

“Mandus, you touched a mystical artifact you stumbled across in the jungle and saw the future. That’s hardly the sort of thing that happens twice.”

“Once was enough!” Mandus hisses furiously, nearly upsetting his teacup. He has just enough restraint to lay cup and saucer aside on the end table. “Don’t you see? I’m sure the workers who helped you with this prank meant no harm, though perhaps you wanted to torment me. Whatever the case, I can’t take any risks, not after what happened last year!”

The Engineer can only stare at his hands in his lap. He rarely feels shame save for when he thinks of his lost godhood, but that is what he feels now.

"Well, you can believe me or not,” he says softly, “but I did not set out to torment you or make you doubt your sanity. Perhaps I should have known you would see it that way. Perhaps I’m not at all convinced you _were_ insane to spare your children and try to deliver the world.”

Mandus’s face hardens. “On that we will _never_ agree.”

"No, I don’t think we will. Whatever you may believe, you defy all the odds just by living each day. With strength of that sort, I don’t think you likely to slip into madness twice.”

The Engineer says this rather more fervently than he intended. Before he can yield to that frightening desire to comfort Mandus, he stands up and leaves the room, trying not to think too much.

Behind him, Mandus senses something of the internal struggle his counterpart’s last words encapsulated. Despite his anger and fear, he is deeply touched. That was a raw, genuine assertion the Engineer just made, and a lovely one at that. Mandus finds himself wishing the Engineer would do so more often.

888

He does, in a way.

The Engineer allows Abbie to braid his hair almost every evening now. He has given up trying to do anything more than hack it short with his obsidian knife every few weeks. Mandus keeps urging him to see a barber, but his hair grows so quickly that it would hardly be worth the trip. During the workday, he keeps it bound up with scraps of cloth or twine, but in the evenings when his hair is still wet from his bath, he lets Abbie tend to it so it does not dry into impossible tangles while he sleeps. She has capable hands for one so young. The Engineer does not doubt the girl will be a fine mechanic when she grows up a bit.

He ordinarily hates to be touched, but he finds Abbie’s ministrations very soothing. Abbie seems to enjoy it, too. It pleases her to make a full-grown adult sit quietly for a moment.

Mandus looks on and smiles. He loves the serious, focused expression on Abbie’s face as she works, her tongue poking between her lips in concentration. He loves the Engineer’s half resigned, half contented posture, too. The Engineer is so rarely at peace.

This is just one of the many gifts Abbie has brought them. She is innocence, happiness, and love. She offers a safe place for Mandus and the Engineer to forget their sorrows.

888

With business at a leisurely pace, the members of Mandus’s household have more time for quiet moments. Still, no one takes them for granted, knowing that the madness of the summer may return at any moment. One fair October night, the Engineer, wrapped in his tartan throw, steps outside for a breath of crisp, smoky-smelling air, and finds Mandus already seated on the front steps. He has plainly been expecting the Engineer: he has two mugs of hot cider at the ready, one between his hands and one still steaming beside him.

He offers up this second mug as the Engineer sits down. “You may want to wait a bit,” Mandus warns gently. “I know you can’t have hot things.”

The Engineer blows delicately on the mug, breathing in the sharp scent of cinnamon and apple. “Is there anything strong in this?”

“Just a bit, not enough to turn your head. I daren’t get drunk where anyone might see. God knows what I might confess.”

“Is that why you locked yourself away on your sons’ birthday?”

“That, and I wanted to be alone. Of course, you took no heed of that, as usual.” Mandus takes a drink, smiling affectionately in the amber glow of the fanlight above the door. “For which I am grateful. Have you no head for drink?”

The Engineer turns his gaze to the dark outlines of the factory buildings across the courtyard, the main chimney reaching to the sky like a giant’s finger. He refuses to meet Mandus’s eye as he answers.

“This body of mine doesn’t manage alcohol very well. When you were returning from Mexico, I had a glass of wine and woke to find myself on the floor.”

Mandus chuckles, and the Engineer gives him a shove. “Drink slowly, then. Small sips.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk so you can mock me?”

“Of course not, little one. I only wanted your company.”

Though the Engineer is still very much sober, he finds himself tempted once again to tell Mandus what Grace said the day after the boiler incident. _Would you grieve for me if I died?_ he wants to ask, and _Did you fear for me as I feared for you when you went into the pipes?_ and _If you died and I lived, what would I do?_ That last thought frightens him most of all. He forces it down before he can think what it means.

Instead he says, “I doubt I’m very good company.” He takes a careful drink of his cider to give himself something to do, concentrates on the sweetness and the faint burn of alcohol at the back of his throat.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You took such good care of me on my sons’ birthday.”

“You were asleep for most of it. Had I tried to lift you from your mourning…gods help us both.”

Mandus considers this for a moment as he watches leaves skitter under a company lorry. “You know, you give me strength,” he says thoughtfully. “There’s a brutal sort of encouragement in your words, whether you intend it or not. I need that ruthlessness. Have you forgotten that it was you who pushed me to climb the temple steps and speak to my children this spring?”

The Engineer scoffs. “You would have managed it in the end. You have always been an extraordinarily stubborn man. Small wonder I couldn’t kill you on New Year’s Eve. Do you know how many times you should have died that night?”

“That seems to be the pattern of these past few years: I should have died, but I didn’t. The malaria in Mexico, then all the horrors of New Year’s Eve – the dumbwaiter crash, the steam pipes, that monster in the bilge, the streets, the Tesla, the altar…”

The Engineer takes another small sip of his cider. “You see? You are ridiculously difficult to kill.” Mandus and the Engineer have known each other long enough now that this comes across as respectful, even admiring.

“You certainly pushed me hard enough that night,” Mandus says, though he can hardly believe he is giving the Engineer credit for such a thing. “You must have put a great deal of thought into your plan.”

A rueful smile. “No, I put a great deal of panic into it, but I’m glad to hear I fooled you. I can keep some of my dignity.”

This is a remarkable admission, but they are both so contented in each other’s company that they hardly notice. They share a rare laugh.

"Tell me,” Mandus goes on, after another drink, “what would you have done had I recognized your voice when we first spoke on the telephone? What would you have done had I remembered who you were and what you intended?”

A small shiver runs through the Engineer. He thought of this very possibility on New Year’s Eve, and it strikes him to the core with anxiety even now.

“The gods only know,” he mutters. “I looked into your mind and saw you had forgotten me, but I knew you might remember me at the sound of my voice. Luck was with me for a time.”

Would the Engineer change anything about that night? Well, yes: he would give himself a godhood if he could. But if he did that, would he be sitting here now with a mug of cider in his hands and his creator and father at his side? Certainly not. Would that be a loss?

 _I don’t know_ , says the Engineer’s mind.

 _Yes_ , says his heart.

Would that loss offset what he might have gained by becoming a god? He will never know that, but he is less and less certain that he wants to find out. If he were given a second chance at divinity, he might first make certain that he could still have this life: this mad, mundane, filthy, sad, triumphant and marvelous human life. He isn’t certain he could make the choice between humanity and divinity anymore. That may be the greatest change in him yet.

888

Halloween comes, and with it a merry gathering. It is the first time Mandus has hosted guests in almost a year, but there are no blood sacrifices on this night, only good fun and the fellowship of the workers. There won’t be time to celebrate both All Hallows and Bonfire Night separately, so the revelers combine the two.

The preceding days are full of preparations. Abbie, Grace, and the two industrialists make chains of autumn leaves to string around the parlor and the dining room, and they collect pinecones for centerpieces. They put out lots of candles to light wandering spirits safely on their way. Abbie even sets a bit of food on the porch steps to pacify more rancorous entities.

The party is a memorable one. All Hallows is said to be a prime night for matchmaking, and the workers know many games for discerning compatibility. Mandus has fond memories of playing some of them with Lily. The revelers particularly enjoy a game for predicting future friendships. They hold two nuts over the coals on a fireplace shovel, one nut for each member of a pair, until they pop from the heat. When Lil and Eliza’s turn comes, the nuts cook very gently. This means the two women will be good friends. Seeing this, Eliza gives Lil a good-humored shrug and says, “Nonsense, isn’t it?”

In another game that the workers call Three Luggies, they set three bowls on the mantelpiece: one filled with clear water, one with cloudy water, and one empty. Then they blindfold the participants, who choose a bowl in which to dip their fingers. If they choose the clear water, they will marry a bachelor; if the cloudy water, a widower; and if the empty bowl, they will remain unwed. Grace happens to dip her fingers in the cloudy water, which draws impish murmurs from the observers.

"Mr. Mandus is a widower, Grace,” Nell says, elbowing the housekeeper.

Grace gives her a shove. “It’s just an old wives’ tale. Mr. Mandus and I are good friends, that’s all.”

"You could be like Jane Eyre,” Lil suggests with a twinkle in her eye.

Grace laughs this off, but she looks at Mandus in a way that makes him wonder if she has indeed thought they might do well together. It’s impossible, of course: Mandus’s heart still belongs to Lily. Besides, he can never marry again, not with all the guilt on his conscience. It’s bad enough that he must listen and smile while his workers call him a good man. He could not stand to keep such secrets from a wife.

Some of the games are quite reckless. One involves plucking raisins from an alcohol fire (“I’ve never seen anyone get burned, sir!” Fletcher Small swears). Another consists of tying an apple and a lighted candle to opposite ends of a stick suspended from the ceiling, spinning the stick, and trying to bite the apple. These things Mandus forbids, to a general outcry. Hard cider and ale have been flowing freely tonight, and Mandus does not want anyone setting fire to the house or themselves.

Apple bobbing, though, is a great success. Grace sets up a washtub in the kitchen, where it doesn’t matter if the stone floor gets wet, and the young men show off for their female counterparts. Samuel Baird proves especially skillful. For such a tall, solid man, he has never been clumsy, and he is soon drawing laughter and cheers all around. The brick walls ring with mirth. Not to be outdone, Eliza puts up her hair, plunges her face into the water, and comes up with an apple held primly between her teeth on the first attempt. The others _ooh_ and _aah_ playfully, but Samuel is a perfect gentleman.

“Maybe _you_ should be a foreman, eh?” he tells Eliza. In truth, the Engineer has been giving this serious consideration himself.

The workers get their fire in the end, once they’ve worked their way through the roast turkey and chestnut stuffing and readied themselves for dessert. They light a bonfire in the factory courtyard, and they eat toffee apples and tell tales while Guy Fawkes’s straw effigy burns. Some of the tales inevitably concern haunted houses, strange apparitions, and unexplainable encounters, but others are full of pride. The workers talk about the new shutdown routine, the madness of the push, Mandus’s heroism in the pipes. Mandus himself could not be more content, sitting on an overturned crate with Abbie on his lap and the tang of fire and autumn air in his nose.

The Engineer has to stand back a ways because of the heat, but he likes the smell and the dancing flames. He likes his toffee apple, too. This surprises him. Sweet things aren’t normally to his taste, but this is autumn in a mouthful.

He doesn’t mind people as much as he once did, but the laughter and chatter eventually begin to grate on him. He finishes his apple and taps Mandus on the shoulder as he goes.

“Leaving already?” Mandus asks amiably.

“No, I just need a bit of a respite from all this…revelry.” He adjusts Mandus’s coat. “Don’t catch a chill, now.”

“Small chance of that!” Mandus laughs as he watches sparks aspire to the stars.

 _Free to ascend as smoke to the stars_ , the Engineer thinks as he goes. _I said that once. That was what I wanted for humanity. I cannot give them that deliverance, and yet…they seem happy enough with the life Mandus provides._

The Engineer reaches the house, stepping carefully over the offerings of roasted almonds and nutty bread on the porch. He needs to sit in his room in the dark and quiet for a while. Then he’ll be all right.

As he walks through the house, he catches the faint scent of cherry blossom. At first he thinks his nose is deceiving him. His nostrils are full of the smells of smoke and apples, so he doubts his perception is accurate just now. The scent follows him, however, even into his room. He knows perfectly well there are no cherry blossoms in here. He has no interest in potpourri or scented bath soap.

Then he remembers: cherry blossom is Lily’s scent.

Part of him knows this is ridiculous. A ghostly visitation on Halloween night? Such a terrible cliché. Still, he cannot help but think of New Year’s Eve, when he saw Lily in the chamber of the heart with a lantern in one hand and a sword in the other. His heartbeat quickens.

“Lily?” he whispers.

He is keenly aware that the only light in the room comes from the dim orange streetlamps outside, and it casts more shadows than anything else. The smell of cherry blossom grows stronger. The Engineer does not feel cold, as all the stories say he should. Instead he senses a palpable weight in the air, and a charge, almost electric. It sends a tingle up his clockwork spine.

The Engineer cannot see Lily – perhaps his physical form prevents it – but he can sense her and hear her as he hears Mandus’s thoughts. Another consciousness spreads across his own like ripples on water, a presence both foreign and familiar.

_I’ve been watching over you, shadow of my husband. You’re doing well._

This is not like the Engineer’s mental exchanges with Mandus. Lily is not separated from him by an ocean, as he and Mandus were on their pilgrimages; Lily is _here_. He can feel her bold, warm presence around him. He finds himself speechless. The last time he and Lily crossed paths, they were enemies.

He remembers how Lily’s soul shone with radiant light. _You pretend to godhood_ , she said to him as she held out her sword in warning _. I am but a servant of true divinity, and I could destroy you. Would you like to see that power?_

Full of bravado though he was, the Engineer did not take this challenge. Nor does he do so now. He is rather inclined to fall on his knees, in fact. Lily carries with her the echo of a vast, inconceivably powerful _something_.

“Why come to me and not to Mandus?” the Engineer asks somewhat feebly.

Lily’s presence shifts around him, flickering like a candle. _He isn’t ready for that. He still torments himself too much._

“It might put him at ease if you spoke with him.”

_Perhaps you can carry a message for me._

“I think that would make him very happy.”

The Engineer senses Lily’s love like a blanket on a cold day. Does he love her in return? Not exactly: it would be more correct to say that he can feel Mandus’s love. It is an inherited feeling, given to him whole, like all his memories of the time when he and Mandus were one. They are his memories because they are Mandus’s, and the Engineer is part of Mandus, but the Engineer as he is now did not exist when those memories were made. They come to him secondhand, in black and white instead of color. Lily is the same. It is Mandus’s love for her that the Engineer feels, not his own. Still, he finds an instinctive comfort in her presence.

 _You may tell my husband_ , comes Lily’s voice, melodic even in the Engineer’s mind, _that I wish him only peace. The children are safe and happy with me, and we will see him again someday. Tell him we watch over him always, even though he can’t see us. Tell him we love him so very much._

Lily’s voice fades, but her presence remains, warm and fervent. “Is that all?” the Engineer asks her. There is an odd catch in his voice when he speaks, Mandus’s love and loss rising in his own chest.

_That’s all he needs to hear. Those are the important things._

“He might very well like to know if he’s damned, if there is such a thing as damnation.”

A pause, as if the ghostly visitor is considering. _I can’t say for certain – it isn’t my judgment to make – but if he carries on as he has been this year, I think he’ll be all right. And you will be as well, though you might make rather a narrow escape._

He feels a mental jolt, as if Lily has just given him a push. Despite himself, he smiles. “I don’t suppose you can tell me what the afterlife is like.”

_I’m afraid not, dear one._

The Engineer sighs. “No. My gods can’t either, not really. Are the trials of the nine levels of Mictlan literal or symbolic, for instance? Is Mictlan the final resting place for all but the most extraordinary souls, or is there something beyond?”

Lily laughs softly in his mind. _That isn’t for the living to know. I can only tell you that you’re right in some ways and wrong in others._

“That doesn’t help, Lilibeth.”

_Don’t be afraid. Tell Oswald that, too. You can feel how strong I am, can’t you? That strength can be yours too, if you stay on the narrow way._

The prospect is attractive. Lily certainly seems more than human now: perfected, free to realize the potential of her divinely-crafted soul. That may be the closest to godhood the Engineer will ever come. If that isn’t motivation enough to endure this human form, this human life, he doesn’t know what is.

Lily seems to sense this realization. The Engineer feels warmth brush against his cheek like a kiss. _Be good, dear one. You’ve been doing so well since that day you drank the pig’s blood._

“You saw that?” The thought is intolerable.

A gentle laugh. _Tell him we love him_ , Lily repeats. Then, as suddenly as it came, her presence fades. The weight and the charge in the air are gone, along with the smell of cherry blossom. The Engineer is left sitting alone in a dimly lit room with fading warmth on his cheek.

By chance or by fate, Mandus comes in at that moment. He smells of fire and sweet, dry straw. The Engineer can feel contentment rolling off him in waves.

Mandus picks his way to the bedside and sits down next to his counterpart. “Why are you sitting in the dark, little one? We’ve all been wondering when you might come back.”

The Engineer tries to compose himself so that Mandus does not see how shaken he is by Lily’s visitation. When he speaks, his voice is oddly subdued. “I wanted a moment of peace, but… Mandus, your Lilibeth was here just now. She spoke to me.”

Mandus goes rigid. “What?” he says in a hissing whisper. “Just now? Is she…is she still here?”

The Engineer shakes his head. “She told me you weren’t ready to hear her just yet, seemed to think it might break your fragile heart –”

“It certainly would not!”

“You are proving her point.”

Mandus lets out a harsh breath. “Have you any idea,” he says, voice low and rough, “how dearly I’ve longed to hear from her? I would shed my blood for –”

“Well, there’s no need for that, thankfully.” The Engineer clasps Mandus’s wrists in a rare show of compassion. “She left me with a message for you: your sons are safe and well with her, she wishes you peace, and she will see you again someday. She loves you and watches over you always.”

Silence falls for a time, broken only by Mandus’s shaky breathing. “Would you lie –”

“If you ask me that once more, I shall hang you from a gambrel hook. I have never once lied to you about your wife and sons, as I’ve told you.”

Mandus doesn’t speak, but the Engineer can feel the echo of his relief, sorrow, hope, and love all melded into one. It sets the Engineer’s own heart racing and his head spinning. He hopes he has done the right thing in passing on Lily’s message. From the way Mandus is trembling, he fears it may have been too much. The Engineer has no gift for this sort of delicate situation.

“Mandus?” he asks hesitantly when the waves of emotion have diminished. “Mandus, are you well?”

Beside him, Mandus makes a muffled sound that might be both a laugh and a sob. If Mandus’s artificial eyes could produce tears, the Engineer suspects he would now feel droplets falling on their clasped hands.

But then Mandus speaks, and his voice is not full of tears but of profound wonder. “Well?” he breathes. “I could hardly be better. Thank you for telling me, little one. Thank you so much.” He gives the Engineer a brief embrace, and the Engineer feels Mandus’s heartbeat fluttering with joy beneath his coat.

Lily was right: that _was_ all Mandus needed to hear. The Engineer finds all this rather amazing. Somehow, despite his complete ignorance of the gentler human emotions, he’s managed to make Mandus truly, deeply happy. Well, he certainly never thought it would come to that, but…it’s not so bad. It fills him with a warmth that does no harm to the compound in his veins.

“Let’s not lose our heads, now,” he says as he withdraws, but with no bite to the words.

The Engineer has made Mandus happy. _That_ is stranger than any ghostly visitation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun looking into Victorian Halloween traditions for this chapter. As far as I can tell, the games and the concept of Halloween as a night of matchmaking are period-accurate.


End file.
